“Managing Your Career as a Business” sounds like something I’ve heard of before. :)
Check out the article at New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/business/smallbusiness/15edge.html
It makes great points and adds credence to our exact same thoughts: “You are your own company.”
When times get tight with your employer, you are expendable. You have to be prepared for the worst. Think of yourself, your family, and your career first. Manage all of that as if it was your company. Because it is. You and your wife/husband/partner make up your board of directors. Your share holders are your children and sometimes your relatives. If the worst has happened, be prepared to do whatever it takes.
One of my close friends works in the mortgage industry. (He is a good person, despite that 
) His coworker, Fred we’ll call him, was a very smart guy with a family and made very decent money. In the summer of 2008, Fred saw what was going to happen to his company. He immediately started looking for a new job. But no one was hiring anyone with his experience. If he was laid off, his savings wouldn’t last long. What did Fred do? He took a job at car wash. I kid you not. He started washing cars! Fred was laughed at by all of his old coworkers. Months later, when they were all laid off, without any jobs, Fred was still paying the bills. And my buddy was jealous that Fred was humble enough to find work at a car wash. Even those jobs weren’t available anymore. This is a true story. Luckily for my buddy, he is still young and doesn’t have a family.
Back to the NYTimes article, my favorite quote:
Then this year, Ms. Chen said, things changed. “Many companies noticed that after all the layoffs and uncertainty, skilled people were available at lower salary demands than in former years. And now business is very active.” The lesson of the economy’s ups and downs, she said, is that workers cannot let hard times or lower pay discourage them. “It’s a change in the market, not a depreciation of who you are as a person.”
That last line is super important to dwell on. If you have been on a, thus-far, unsuccessful job hunt, you are no doubt discouraged. Keep your head up and keep pushing along.
About the author
Mike Wille - I'm the head techie here with a passion and hunger for all things digital. I got into programming because I love to create and couldn't cut a straight line in wood shop.