I was very surprised to read the results of a recent survey by Gumtree.com which showed that half of the British working population are concerned about their job security and that a staggering 44% are overwhelmed by the job hunting process and a whopping 63% fear they don’t have the right skills or experience to move into another industry. That’s a lot of fear!
Why is it that so many people believe that being fired or losing your job is something that we should avoid at all cost, no matter how bad the job is? Yes, I agree that in the current economic crisis it is getting harder to find a job and we all have bills to pay so we just can’t lose our only source of income. But think about it, life is short, why continue to stay in a job which you don’t enjoy and are constantly living in the fear of being fired?
There are things that you can do to reduce this fear and the first step is to dig out that CV and update it – get some help if you need to. Take a close look at your qualifications and skill set. What are your motivated skills i.e. the things that you really enjoy doing and are good at? What skills do you feel you need to improve – write them down and start working on them. Make yourself more marketable and be visible and you’ll quickly see that many of your skills are transferable with the result that your fear of losing your job will begin to diminish.
When you go for that next interview, you don’t need to feel embarrassed about having to explain the why’s and how’s of losing a job or being unemployed. Just be honest and explain the situation as positively as possible.
By reducing your fear of losing your job you will free yourself up to start enjoying your working day – remember, we spend 80% of our waking day at work so you might as well enjoy it!
