Now what?
THE END OF YOUR JOB ISN'T THE END OF THE WORLD

Inside Business Magazine (December 2008)

Welcome to the pink slip economy, where almost no job is sacred or secure.

Layoffs were recently announced at Forest City. Thousands of employees in Northeast Ohio wait to learn their fate under new owners, PNC Bank. (Even Peter Raskind, National City’s chairman and chief executive, will leave before the end of the year.)

Marilyn Szendrey and Ron Torch know the worst-case scenario.

Intimately.

Eight years ago, Szendrey packed up after being laid off from her job as branch manager of a medical staffing firm. It wasn’t 4 p.m. on a Friday. There was no pink slip.

“I was mortified and humiliated,” Szendrey recalls. “I got in the car and cried all the way home.”

Ron Torch worked in brand management for package goods companies in the early 80’s when he lost his job.

“This was a catalyst,” Torch says, who started his own company eight years later. “It’s one thing to say, ‘I want to be in control of my future.’…It’s another thing to do it.”

Now, both work to help others find jobs – Szendrey as a regional manager for The Reserves Network and Torch as the president and CEO of the Solon-based Torch Group.

Here’s what they recommend for recently laid-off workers:

>> TAKE A DEEP BREATH, CLEAR YOUR HEAD, GET PAST YOUR EMOTIONS – BUT DON’T STALL.

TORCH: “No one wants to hire angry people. Even if you are resentful, never ever, say anything negative about your past employer.”

SZENDREY: “Don’t undervalue the benefit of starting to look for a job immediately. By not taking action, you’re going to sink deeper into that depressive state, and it’s going to be harder to climb back out.”

>> BUILD NETWORKS. JOIN PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS. VOLUNTEER. TALK TO EVERYONE.

TORCH: “We coach people and say, ‘Talk to as many people as you can.’ Get outside of your box....The mailman or the doctor may be living next door to the person who is going to hire you.”

SZENDREY: “Be clear on what it is you want to do, show that you’ve researched it, know what you’re talking about – you’re going to go a lot further [that way].”

>> UNDERSTAND THE WORK WORLD HAS CHANGED. TURN A CHALLENGE INTO A CHANCE TO RE-EVALUATE CAREER AND LIFE CHANGING GOALS.

TORCH: “People tend to get complacent with where they are. There’s a whole world of people and ideas and technology companies and new ideas. It can be a nice face-lift for you.”

SZENDREY: “For a long time, if you got laid off, you had to look at yourself and ask, ‘Why did they pick me and not somebody else?’ You walked away feeling beat up and abused. That stigma is not attached to it like it used to be.”

For additional information on The Reserves Network and its affiliates,  please contact: Brandon Thimke, communications manager, at bthimke@thereservesnetwork.com.