Don’t Get on Your Bike, Get on Your Computer

Sitting in an office, dreading a call from H.R, wondering who will be next in line to clear their desk is all too common in the present climate.  If this is you, it’s time to act.

If you’ve never used Word on your home PC for anything more than a letter to cancel your gym membership, it’s time to get creative.  You’re going to be your own management consultant.

Firstly ask yourself if you are in your dream job?  Chances are, this time last year you were on the point of leaving anyway.  Now you might be in the position where the choice is out of your hands.  The trick is not to get bogged down with fear and push forward.

As you knock ideas around your head in your own personal brainstorm be as ‘blue sky’ or ‘out of the box’ with your thinking as you can… without reaching for the sick bag.  Imagine what you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail?  Run your own company?  Go part-time? Change your career path?

Be outrageous, be silly, but be honest and then work out what the steps are between you and that goal.  If you haven’t really thought what you’d like to be doing, you’re stumbling in the dark, so take the time to decide where you’re headed next.

Thanks to the wonder of the internet there are hundreds of agencies out their battling for your talents and the more of those you contact and register with the wider your choice of the job market.

Next step, make yourself the best man or woman for the job.  If you’ve never had more than a rough idea of how Power Point works – time to find out. If your Excel is a bit rusty, get it up to scratch.  Get savvy, most recruitment agencies will give you free access to their training programmes.

Need to reach out to some old contacts?  Get messaging with MSN.  If your new business idea is bursting to come out then market research has never been more accessible and data has never been easier to source and verify.

Recessions like rubbish dance crazes seem to come around every so often whether you expect them to or not.  I for one am glad this is 2009.  We don’t have to get on our bikes, just on our PC’s.