The Risky Economy
A job search under any circumstances is no treat - rewriting your resume at least a dozen times, job searching on the Internet day after day, and landing maybe two interviews for every hundred openings you dig up - but in a shaky economy it can be downright brutal.  Business revenue declines, which causes companies to cut payroll, and then the lack of personnel drives frustrated customers away.  It’s a vicious cycle.  But why get trapped in that rat race if you don’t have to?

Starting a Business Trumps Job Searching
Looking for jobs can be a very shortsighted process.  Long gone are the days when people worked at the same company for decades and retired with a nice pension.  Since at least the 1980s, most professionals change jobs every three to four years, and it’s usually the employer’s choice rather than the worker’s.  Starting a business can be a scary proposition - especially if you come to the process with a lot of unanswered questions in your mind - but a job search can take up just as much time, effort and even capital.  Besides, here is all you’re left with at the end of that road - just another job that you might hold for five years, after which it’s the same process all over again, except you’re now five years older!

Four Reasons to Drop Job Searching for Entrepreneurship
If you have reached the stage in your career where you’re earning a comfortable living as an executive or someone with skills honed over many years in business, there are many strikes against you on the job search front.  Here are four reasons why starting a business may better serve your long-term financial goals:

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Bigger Booms - Deeper Busts

The U.S. economy has always been in flux, vacillating between boom and bust times ever since the country was founded.  Just in the last 120 years there was the Silver Crisis of the 1890s, the great stock market crash of 1929, and the dot-com bust in the first few years of the current century.  Shaky financial times generally go hand-in-hand with job loss.  Companies disappear due to bad business decisions, lack of capital, insufficient sales, plus other reasons far too numerous to mention here, and end up pitching their employees out on the street.  Companies that manage to keep their doors open often cut staff, sometimes severely, in order to wait things out until the economy improves - which it has always done, so far.  But the current downturn, for the first time since the Great Depression, is touching the working lives of a layer of citizens not used to this sort of economic strife - the solidly middle class.

Out of Work and Anxious

Pick up any newspaper - one still in business, that is - and you will read stories about how this IT executive, or that construction supervisor, or the assistant bank manager over there, was laid off and is out of a job, sometimes for the first time in their career!  With large numbers of skilled people out of work, and not all that many new positions being created, people in this situation are finding it harder and harder to re-enter the job market.  A decade or more ago, the rule of thumb was to have 90 to 120 days of personal capital on reserve to tide you over during unemployment.  However, horror stories abound of people - good, decent, well-qualified and hard-working Americans - going six, ten, twelve months, or longer, before finding gainful employment.  Many who do are disappointed to discover the new job they’re taking doesn’t pay as well as the one they lost.  Welcome to the global economy.

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Part-Time Becomes Full-Time
These days, many of us choose to work more than one job.  Oftentimes this involves a full-time job plus something part-time.  The 40-hour position pays most of the bills, provides needed benefits, and offers a stable work environment.  The auxiliary job might simply be a way to put more money into your pocket, but more and more it represents the beginnings of a dream career as a business owner.  At some point, your success in building that part-time work into something self-sustaining will cause you to make two of life’s tough employment choices—when do I quit my regular job, and how do I leave it without damaging the relationships I have built there?

The Great Quit-Work Fantasy is a Fallacy
For any budding entrepreneur preparing to take that giant leap from worker to business owner, one of the fantasies involves charging into the boss’s office, shouting out all your past grievances, and storming off by tossing an “I quit!” over your shoulder before slamming the door behind you.  That scenario is fine for the movies, but it is likely the first mistake you would make as your own boss.

Every Business Relationship Has Value
As an employee, you are involved in four distinct relationships every workday.  These are with:
1. Employer / supervisor
2. Coworkers
3. Clients
4. The company itself

Each one of these associations has value to you as a future business owner.  Your employer is someone who can serve as an excellent reference or advisor in your new position.  Your coworkers can send you business leads or recommend your venture to their friends.  The people doing business with your existing company fall into a similar category.  And the company you are leaving is a potential future customer.

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You know you need to change your career when …

1. You fantasize about working in a tollbooth on the M50.
2. The highlights of the day are tea breaks and lunchtime.
3. You know you have said all this before but you can’t remember when.
4. You keep ringing the talking clock because you know the clock at work is slow by a few hours.
5. You go to work and when you return home you have no memory of what happened in between.
6. You wonder what the new person at work is so enthusiastic about.
7. You volunteer to do the photocopying for everyone.
8. You wish your customers would leave you alone … they always seem to want something.
9. You pretend to be on the dole when people ask you what you do.
10. You create a calendar that shows how many days you have until retirement.
11. You mark off each day on your calendar with a big black marker.
12. You wonder idly what it would be like to spend time in Mountjoy … and speculate that it really couldn’t be much worse than this job.
13. You offer to swap jobs with the cleaning staff.
14. You begin to think about beginning to smoke … at least it gets you out of the office.
15. You wonder why all the stupid people of the universe congregate in your office.
16. You spend all week thinking about the weekend and spend most of Sunday dreading going to work.
17. You consider going to the zoo and hiring a monkey to do your job … you doubt if anyone would notice the difference.
18. You wonder what sort of deeds you committed in a past life to get saddled with your job, colleagues and boss…and speculate that you were probably Attila the Hun.
19. You have rung in sick with so many excuses that you are rapidly running out of dead relations and illnesses. You have already tried the Ebola virus and bird flu.

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You have just had another crap day at work. Some of these indicators may be familiar to you! You are tired and you wonder what went wrong. Everyone told you (family, friends, neighbours, the guy on the toll bridge) that this was a great job with great prospects. Now, you are just tired of it. Tired of the politics, the changing requirements, tired of your boss who always seems to be changing the goal posts?  You want to change careers not just change job. The problem is that you have no idea what you want to do. You have had vague ideas about working in the Third World or doing something to “help” people…whatever that means. There has been so much talk about life purpose...what does that mean anyway? How could you find your life purpose? And will you have to get fired before you do? And does a career change mean that everything you have done up until now is lost? The good news is that there are answers to all these questions.

• Yes, you can find your life purpose (and there are clues if you look back over your life)
• No, you don’t have to get fired…but sometimes getting fired or experiencing redundancy is what you need to get on track
• As for losing everything … nothing is lost. Everything you have done will benefit you, even if it’s only to teach you that you never want to do X again.

Laura Berman Fortgang outlines a powerful 12-step career change plan in her book: Now What? Uncover your Life Blueprint. Here are some of the tools she suggests you use to get back on track.

First of all get really clear about what you hate about your current life.

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Stability, Benefits and Support
If you share the American dream of running your own business some day, chances are you have given some thought to the challenges that await you.  Since most of us are not independently wealthy or have a trust fund to fall back on—and knowing that it takes time to get a business off the ground and into profit mode—we need to have a reliable income stream.  Thousands of people every year start their own business while continuing to work a full-time job.  A regular paycheck and guaranteed benefits such as health care not only provide financial stability, but also give you enough peace of mind to devote positive energy toward your entrepreneurial goals.

Boundaries and Time Management
Very few companies prohibit their employees from having a business on the side, provided you will not be a direct competitor.  So long as you continue to work just as hard in your full-time position, there is no reason not to make the first move in what may prove to be your best-ever business decision—to become your own boss.  Managing the time you devote to that start-up is crucial, especially if you have other commitments to look after, such as raising a family.  Some companies expect you to tell them when you begin to run a side business, while others make no such demand on their workers.  Your employee handbook is usually a good place to find any such restrictions or requirements.

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Retrenchment is no longer a dirty word, and in today’s climate a vast majority of the population have been affected by retrenchment at some stage of their working life whether directly or indirectly.

The familiar ‘one job for life’ mantra seems to be a fleeting memory of the days of old while job uncertainty and the constant threat of unemployment teeters on the edge of our minds constantly reminding us each time we’re ‘called’ into a private meeting.

Lets be honest, being retrenched is stressful, especially the first time. It’s a tough road moving from denial to acceptance and while some people manage to go through these stages with relative ease others may take a little more time.

Whether we like it or not retrenchment is something many people may have to face at some stage of their careers. Here are some constructive tips to help you cope with retrenchment if you happen to find yourself in such a situation.

Don’t take it personally
It’s only natural to feel shock and anger, shock that your company is letting you go and anger that you didn’t get to snatch that great stapler on your way out the door. That being said, you have to understand that being made retrenched is not your fault and is not a reflection on you as a person, its just business. Don’t let what happened to you lower your self-esteem and affect your self-confidence as a job does not define what you are worth as a person.

You need to get back on your feet, so share what you are feeling with those around you and recognise that this happened because of the changing economic situation and the retrenchment of workers is one crucial step that many companies must take in order to cut down costs to survive.

Since it has happened, don’t take it too hard.

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At this critical time in the economy, it is important to reduce costs and avoid mistakes – especially when it comes to hiring new employees. Finding the right recruiter to help you sort your way through job applications is a cost effective and logical solution for all businesses.

An outsourced recruitment agency will assign a consultant to find the right person for your organisation, freeing up your valuable time to concentrate on what you do best - your core business activities, whatever they may be - mining, contracting, consulting or architecture.

Here are seven tips to help you find the right recruiter:

1. Get to know the agency – spend some time with the consultant who will be working for you to ensure they understand your individual needs, the industry in which you operate and the role you need filled. It’s also imperative that the consultant knows exactly what you need in an employee, including interpersonal skills, education level and salary expectations.  The most important information that is needed cannot be found on a website, it is the culture and environment of your business that makes the difference with finding the “right fit”.  It is a waste of your time and money if the candidates the agency sends to you are completely wrong for your business.

2. Check the agency’s first impression – it is a common phrase, but we all know first impressions count. Look at how quickly the agency responds to email and telephone enquiries and the language and manner used by the agency staff. How do the agency staff dress and are they punctual and reliable? Assess how this reflects on your business because, after all, this will be your prospective employee’s first introduction to your organisation.

3.

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