Work Daze

Listen, if you think your present job is miserable, imagine how you’d feel
if you lost it.

David K. Marshall, an unemployed 61-year old credit manager, recently
profiled in The Wall Street Journal’s “Managing Your Career” column, just
got laid off for the second time in two years. The last time he was
unemployed, it took six months of searching before Mr. Marshall found a new
credit managing gig. Now the question is – which will come first? A new job
or Medicare.

[Frankly, I’m not surprised that a credit manager is having a tough time in
today’s job market. The banks and brokerage companies that are currently
writing down billions of dollars in credit losses obviously felt that no
management was needed when it came to making loans. And now that their sour
loans have them on the edge of bankruptcy, they can’t afford to hire the
credit managers they should have hired in the first place.]

It’s not only credit managers who are finding themselves on the street for
an extended period. According to Joann S. Lublin, who manages the “Managing
Your Career” column, about 18.3% of jobless Americans in January have been
out of work for at least 27 weeks, and “these individuals often battle
pinched wallets, age bias and depression.”

Must be rough. You and I are fully employed and we’re wrestling 24/7 with
depression and age bias. As for a pinched wallet, I could slip mine through
the eye of a needle, if I could afford to buy one. But there is hope, as we
learn from Lublin’s poll of folks whose employment is based on the
unemployment of others.

Like William Brown, a senior managing director for DBM, a New York
human-resources consultancy. “Build your personal brand,” councils Brown.
The idea is to gather your friends and acquaintances for a focus group on
Product You. The goal – to determine why this brand isn’t selling.

For example, Product You may have a shelf-life beyond your expiration date.
If this is the issue, then it is time to spruce up your label graphics with
a hint of Botox, and a dab of Platysmaplasty, and, while you’re at it, how
about a new toupee from Rugs-R-Us. If you can’t afford to cover your chrome
dome with the high-priced spread, made of human hair, go for the raccoon fur
model. It looks great and will make you feel like one of the pack when you
go dumpster diving at the local supermarket.

Alternately, Product You may have too many artificial ingredients, like that
business degree from the London School of Economics that you received after
sending $199.99 to a web site in Nigeria, or those prominent bullet points
on your resume that cite your Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and your service to
the country as Ambassador to the Court of King Fred of Freedonia.

In fact, if there are items on your resume that do not reflect the truth, or
even approximate it, the long-time out-of-worker needs to polish that puppy,
and fast. “Make sure your resume is doing its job,” says Damien Birkel,
founder of Professionals in Transition. Unless, of course, its job is to
serve as the disposable liner for a parakeet cage.

“A subtle variation in font choice can sometimes help a resume stand out
from the crowd,” suggests Alex Douzet, a founder of TheLadders.com. I wish
this were true, but somehow I doubt that changing your pathetic career
history from Ariel Black to Franklin Gothic is going to nab that big job. I
feel completely differently about a change in font size, however. Why not
change your font size from a feeble 12-point to a powerful, self-assured
48-point? You’ll have to use a piece of paper the size of a Volvo station
wagon to get everything in, but what’s so bad about that? Imagine the
impression you’ll make when four burly longshoremen carry your resume into
the interview room and drape it over the hiring manager. Now that’s
confidence!

If all these maneuvers fail, you can always follow the example of tragically
unemployed Sharon Harrington, who exorcises her job hunting blues with the
occasional “solo pity party,” where she bemoans her fate, feels sorry for
herself, and eats tons of chocolate. The only suggestion I can make is for
Ms. Harrington to integrate those chocolate-covered pity parties with her
job interviews. Once you’ve shared a five-pound box of run-soaked truffles
with a hiring manager, no way he’s going to turn you down.