Being Flexible and Adapting in this New Economy

One of my clients pointed out a trend that many of you readers, if you’re unemployed and lucky enough to be chosen after an interview, may have encountered. After working her way through the interviewing process in two jobs, and after being told she had been chosen as a finalist for the job in both cases … nothing happened. Not a thing. No phone calls. No e-mails stating that someone else had been chosen. Complete silence. It was as if both companies had fallen off the edge of the world.

When she finally followed up, she was told by the people involved, “We lost our funding. Stay in touch, maybe in the second quarter the position will open up again.”

Talk about feeling let down. Talk about feeling powerless. What a waste of effort it had all been was her feeling. And, it appeared, there was nothing that she – or for that matter, anyone -- could do about it. No strategy was going to revive the prospects of either company, improve their sales or profits, and revive the job opening.

Yet something didn’t make sense about this to me. I reasoned that, although both companies had “lost” the funding, there was probably still a real need for the “problem” those job opening were supposed to solve. The rationale for creating those openings must still be open, and someone had to perform the work. That seemed logical.

So, when we strategize together, after thinking about it, I said to my client, as I’m wont to do: “What would happen if…?”

“What would happen if,” I said, “you went back to these two companies, to the hiring managers, and stated what we’ve just talked about? Namely, that the need for the job probably hasn’t gone away. And, therefore, what if you asked them, since they knew your capabilities by this time after so thoroughly interviewing you, if you might work on a few of their urgent projects on a contract basis? Would you be willing to do that to see what they said?”

Of course she would, my client said. And she did.

And, in one out of the two cases, the idea struck a chord with the hiring manager. Yes, he told her, there was a real need for a project and he would see if they could contract with her to do the work. After some shuttling back and forth, and a few discussions, her got back to her.

Lo and behold, she had a one month agreement, signed sealed and delivered, and was earning a reasonable fee. Not a great one, but a heck of a lot more than the nothing she had beforehand.

The second company is still mulling over her offer. Something may, or may not, come of it.

Now my client has a leg up over any other applicant, if the work she does is the quality they expect – and, knowing her, it is. They have a chance to look her over, and she, in turn, has a chance to look them over. She gets to work, which as any of you who aren’t working now know, is more satisfying than the alternative. She also gets a reasonable amount of money for her efforts.

Not an ideal situation. But what is? In this New Economy, with our country at war, it obviously pays to be creative and flexible.