Five Tips to Take Care of your Career During a Recession by Surranna Sandy

Strategies To Manage Your Career During A Recession By Surranna Sandy, CPRW, CEIP, President ResumeSolutions.ca

An April 2009 report from Stats Canada showed that employment declined by 61,000 in March - with all the job losses coming from full-time employment. According to the report, this steep job loss has pushed up the rate of unemployment by 0.3% to a 7 year high of 8.0%. The greatest losses by provinces were in British Columbia, which lost 33,000 jobs followed somewhat surprisingly, by the province of Alberta, which lost 15,000 jobs and Ontario with 11,000 jobs eliminated. These provinces have the fastest rate of employment decreases across the nation. What does that mean for job seekers? More competition and increased need to be marketable. We are in one of the unprecedented global economic situations in decades, and as a result, the labour market has seen significant increases in redundancies and retrenchments.

At Résumé Solutions, many of our clients have lost money in the stock market while many others have mentioned they were already going through tough times before the market took a turn for the worse. Many of our clients who are nearing retirement have to reassess that plan and many may have to continue working to survive. This scenario raises a number of challenges and opportunities for our clients.

Below are my personal tips to survive and prosper during these uncertain times. • Complete an inventory of your career accomplishments and achievements to-date including identifying how you achieved those results. • Do a self-assessment to determine your core competencies and skills including those that are underused in your current role. • Develop an understanding of your values to create a value proposition for potential employers. • Conduct a thorough self-assessment to design both your short and long-term career goals for your future. • Finally update your résumé. As a professional résumé writing company and certified résumé writers, we know that a well-written great résumé can translate your work and life experience to market you to an employer. This is of critical important to have an updated résumé that is ready to send out at a moment's notice. If you cannot write one yourself, work with one of RésuméSolutions.ca Certified Résumé Writers to gain that competitive advantage.


About the Author

Surranna Sandy is the President of Resume Solutions, http://www.resumesolutions.ca, a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Employment Interview Coach and former Human Resources Management Professional with fortune 500 companies. Resume Solutions offers advanced resume writing, career coaching and interview coaching services from entry level, mid-career through to executive clientele in the global marketplace.