I saw this article on Yahoo News about GM laying off 3,400 white-collar professionals, “mostly engineers.”
Isn’t that nice… more engineers on the market. Scary. I have met plenty of unemployed engineers in my presentations and users of JibberJobber… while engineering jobs are going overseas and certain industries hurting (and letting more engineers go), it’s a tough time to be an engineer in a job search.
Of course, this is true of many industries and professions…
My thought when I first read this was, “how many of these people where “heads-down’ engineers?”
That is, engineers that came to work on time, did their jobs, and went home after work. The people who were not out looking for other jobs, politicking at work, or any of that stuff they don’t get paid to do?
These are good honest people who are doing what they are paid to do… and then they get a *generous* “two weeks for every year worked” severance.
Trust me, it isn’t much better than that – you can GIVE your life to your company and when they are done with you, you get a few weeks or a few months of severance (if you are lucky).
You MUST think more about your own personal career management. BE the CEO of Me, Inc. What does that mean? It means you have the right marketing materials (resume, website/blog, business cards), understand your position in the market (whether you are available now or not), undertand your financial needs, etc.
It’s time to not be heads-down, and to really take control of YOUR career!
Great post. It’s so important to evaluate yourself every so often and appraise your work skill value. Only then can you be confident to take control of your career path.