hindsite2020vision.com

Still looking for a job and it is becoming increasingly harder not to make a judgement on current employers and their criteria for short listing, inviting to interview and eventually who they employ.

Surely it cant be true that at the age of forty eight I am no longer employable?

One of the things that I have come to accept in life that I have learned over the years, is that in certain aspects I have no power of decision making when it comes to advancing myself, especially in terms of my career. I can fill in application forms to the best of my ability: if invited to interview I can prepare and be the best I can be on the day: but when it comes to the decision making process I am now powerless. Therefore I am able to accept rejection not as an expression of who I am but as a reflection of what others perceived me to be for the duration of the interview. 

It is now gone and there is no going back but is there something for me to learn from the experience? Did I do myself justice? And regardless of the answer to the question, in terms of me judging my own personal performance, it is still gone and I move on to the next venture. If though I can answer yes to reflective questions I can then say thank you to those that made the decision not to employ me; thank you, you’ve saved me from working some where that wasn’t right for me. 

I appreciate that I still want things in life that, financially, this may have provided but I will still find that, as long as I keep doing what I’m doing.

It is becoming harder and harder to find work but this thought process ensures a position from which I can continue to look in a good frame of mind, a frame of mind that doesn’t constantly question my own sense of worth; there must be something wrong with me if I keep getting rejected; no not at all, there may be something wrong with how I write applications, there may something I can change about how I interview but these are change-ables and do not mean there is something wrong with me.

I have no power over the decision making of others, I can do only what I can do to the best of my ability, there is no more. And if I do that Iwill influence the decision making process to the best of my ability but I’m still at the mercy of the judgements of others. There is nothing to gain from speculating about their criteria after a rejection, this is not something I can know to be true and is therefore not my business. As such I can be happy or sad depending upon whether or not I was the best I could be at that time and if I was, happy days and thank you, you given me the continued opportunity of finding the right place to work, for me.

Will you be making any this year? Why do we make resolutions at the beginning of every new year? Out with the old and in with the new and yet what actually changes, what is it that is old and what constitutes new? This year I resolve not to make any resolutions, heard that before some where. So where does that leave us, what to do, resolve or not?

Resolution: the dictionary definition describes it as an act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method or procedure.

Have you determined before upon an action or a course of actions as an expression of a new years resolution? What did you do, what happened and what did you learn as a result of hindsight, so that we can learn about making resolutions work for all of us ?

For some time now we have been talking about the concept of Globalisation and just what that means. There have been ideas of a Global community, or even a sense of a Global citizenship. Historically people have always been travellers, British history is punctuated by long periods of occupation, the Vikings, the Saxons, the Romans, the Normans, have all played significant historical roles in forming the society in which we live today.

There are modern differences and motives for people relocating to other parts of the Globe today, but what do we learn from the experience of living and working abroad? What are the logistical practicalities required for us to be able to make the most of the experience; financially; medically; culturally.

What can we learn from your experiences of living and working abroad, what did you do, what happened and what have you learned in hindsight, what would you or do you do differently now as a result of and with the benefit of that hindsight ?

Our first approach of looking for hindsight that is practically informing on how best to live through a recession focussed on a personal and individual level. However of course there is a business level, the job providers who are as equally vulnerable to recessions. We only have to look at the present governments response to the budget deficit the cuts in the civil services and the subsequent redundancies as an indication of the potential impact of recessions.. So what is best practice for businesses and the state, what do they do to survive these periods of reduction and inactivity? Is cutting back to the bare bone and laying people of the best solution? Are there any other practices that businesses and the state can employ to weather the storm and come out the other side ready and prepared for the opportunities that will present themselves again?

There have been reported comments in the press from a variety of sources recently suggesting that recessions are a good thing, that it provides the opportunity to evaluate systems and processes, re-source suppliers and look for better economic advantages. It suggests that inactivity on one level doesn’t necessarily mean inactivity on all levels, that businesses need to see and take the opportunity to re-assess, and change the things that need changing and that can be changed. At some level it plays out on the personal level, doing the things that we say we want to do but never find the time too.

Do you run your own company, your own business, have you experienced and survived through a recession(s)? what did you do, what happened and what do you do differently now with the benefit and beauty of hindsight ?

With an ever diminishing state and the support mechanisms they provide we may find ourselves having to be more and more resourceful, money doesn’t stretch, it never has, for that perception ever to have been true it required a truth, a truth that usually means not doing the things we like to do, or buying the things that we like but focussing only on the essentials. And how our perceptions of what is or isn’t essential vary and how we get embroiled in value judgements; how can that be an essential when I can only afford, and on it goes. There is interest in these discussions but how do they help us? What do we learn other than our perceptions of the essentials in life vary and how is this new information, it is probably something that we all already know.

What I want to know is how do I affect change in my life that doesn’t require me to languish under the false perception that I can ‘stretch’ out my money in less than bountiful times ? How can I work and determine the best results of my labour for the greatest return ? How can I work for myself and work in a business that is mine that I can determine that will in turn determine my life style ? I’m not suggesting for one minute that setting up your own business won’t mean barren periods of lean living but these periods may be easier to accept if we can see the corner that we need to turn and see it getting closer and closer as a result of our own endeavours. What better motivator could we ever need, the source of our future happiness is in fact in our hands, a true reflection of our own efforts.

Now is a time, opportunities are there but how do we recognise them and seize them, what does it require to make it work other than the feeling that this is something we want, how do we make it real?

Have you set up your own business ? what did you do, what happened and what would you do differently with the beauty of hindsite ? What can we learn today from your experience that will enable us tomorrow to avoid the pitfalls that inexperience can lead us into ?

Always has always will, especially in tough times, especially now. But it never knocks twice, in fact, opportunity doesn’t knock at all, it never makes a sound. Opportunity is something you see, something you feel, something you sense.

I read this somewhere some time back and it stayed with me, times are tough and getting tougher what opportunities have you seen, felt, sensed? What did you do, what happened and what will you do differently now with hindsight. What can we learn that may bring opportunities to the fore and make them more accessible, more practical, that we may be better equipped to weather the pending storm that the recent cuts will bring ?

‘Travel broadens the mind:’ a commonly held perception but does travel really broaden our minds, our horizons? Does travel have to broaden our minds, is that the purpose of traveling? Perhaps traveling is just an extension of living life just somewhere else. Perhaps we all travel (those of us that do or have) for very different reasons. But whatever the reasons or the motives behind traveling there is always the experience of it and therefore something to be gained and something to learn, something to share. What can we share of our experiences of travelling that will inform others who don’t travel or are about to set off for the first time on their travels, or even those in mid stream who are wondering what to do or where to go next?

Have you ever returned home from traveling and felt reluctant to tell the stories of your experiences and equally sensed a reluctance in those friends and family members who ask: ‘well, what was it like?’

We’ve all met a travel bore somewhere in life those that start sentences like: when I was in………….and then go on to share an enlightened view-point of the world. I know, I’ve been that bore until that is it was pointed out to me that no one really cared where I’d been, what they really cared about was that I was home and back in the ‘land of the living’.

It probably isn’t fair to compare traveling with holidaying, there is a difference but there is still a relationship between experience and the need to relate it and how it is received; whether the experiences are a weekend away or two years on a kibbutz.

So how do we demonstrate that travel broadend our minds, what is we did, what happened, what is it now that we do differently as a result of our travels? When we look back with the benefit of hindsight, after we have put time and distance between the actual experience and our then understanding of it do we reflect differently now and form a different understanding?

What is it we learned and what do we do differently as a result?  What would we do differently if we were to do it again?

We’ve all been there and done  them, we all know what they mean and we’ve all  probably got many  T-shirts to prove it; how many disastrous interviews have you had that ensured you didn’t get that job:  why were they disastrous what happened and what did you do differently next time ?  How many interviews have we had that we thought were disastrous and yet we got the job anyway, what happened and what did we do, what can we learn from the experience?

I have been made redundant twice in life now and both, though having the same end result, proved to be very different experience. The first time I was made redundant I was just sixteen and had only been working for ten months after leaving school. The company looked after me and I walked away with some £250.

The last time was three years ago at a time in life where, not only was I considerably older, but I had formed something of a career. There is no doubt that my attitude toward the two experiences was determined by a range of responses that were informed by experience and age.

I learnt from my first experience that I could put the money in my pocket and travel around Europe for six months, which I did. I wanted to work in a vineyard picking grapes and so off I went. I learned at a young age that I could be independent and explore the world on my own, live for the moment and that sense dominated my approach to life and I went on to live in that vein.

This last experience has been very different but with parallels none the less. I decided to remain independent and that meant independent of the state for as long as possible. This time I walked away with considerably more money that ran into the teen thousands kind of bracket. Not a fortune but enough to create the false perception that I had ‘enough’ for the moment. Of course the moments came and passed and I still had no job but still had bills.

I am signed on now and now sharing this experience because at the age of forty-eight I am finding it very difficult to find work again and I know I am not the only one. I have learned that I should not attach stigma’s to my own social status, I was made redundant I didn’t walk away. The state has an obligation to support those who fall under its welfare state ethos and as such it recognises that people, rightly, at times in life require assistance. I think more importantly, I learned that whilst going through the process of redundancy I should have looked out for my self more and my future and not looking at the money. I was so keen to leave well and get all things done and hand over in a good way that I lost sight of the fact I could have used the time to find alternative employment before leaving.

What I will do differently in the future: set out a plan and stick to it to ensure I maximise all my efforts in finding a job before leaving and accepting the redundancy payment; balance out my responsibility to the organisation that is making me redundant and to my own future career; register unemployed immediately and seek out available financial benefits; keep my NI contributions up; seek out all support and advise available about getting back into work without assuming my experience and skills will be enough.