Paco continues his guest post arc on the plight of the unemployed product manager (see parts 1, 2, and 3). Give him some love and a job already!
Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager, Part Four
Ahh, the final installment. Time to wrap this puppy up. Sadly, I can’t really afford a puppy right now, so I’ll probably have it euthanized, but hey, let’s not dwell on the negatives.
OK, let’s dwell on one:
Why Big Career Switches Suck Right Now
OK, I’ve tried this. When I first got laid-off, I studied and got certified in another field. Yeah, I’m being ambiguous cuz I’m trying to remain anonymous – duh. Suffice it to say the training classes and cert exam weren’t cheap, and I rocked the cert. And it’s for a field that’s constantly hiring, even now.
After applying for job after job in that new field for a couple months, I decided to just focus on PM and related work.
Why? Because NOBODY in the new field wanted to hire someone without experience when there’s a ton of people with experience who are also looking for work.
So before you decide to change fields completely, try to find out if you’ll actually find work in it with no experience. If it’s a field where they’re still hiring lots of people straight out of school, great. Otherwise, you might just be wasting your time.
Last Bit of Advice
Well, if none of the advice in these installments works out for you, the FBI is currently on a hiring blitz. They’re looking to hire around 800+ special agents, and computer skills definitely help. Plus, you may finally get the opportunity to pistol-whip somebody as part of your daily job. And what PM hasn’t wanted to do that?
Or if you’ve always wanted to travel to the Middle East and you want to get back into shape without joining a gym, the Marines would kill two birds with one stone. I think they also teach you how to do that, literally.
Oh, and a have a homebrew.
Just sayin’…
P.S. If any of you lovely, intelligent, and oh-so-generous readers is looking for a salty PM in the Twin Cities area, feel free to contact me at sometimespaco-social@yahoo.com :)
Also in The Product Manager's Guide to Unemployment
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager – Part One
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager – Part Two
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager, Part Three
- Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager, Part Four
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
New blog post: Guest Post: A Short Guide to Being an Unemployed Product Manager, Part Four http://tinyurl.com/b3spjm
If things aren’t going well right now, don’t panic and don’t get down on yourself. Being a PM, you’re probably used to riding waves of stress, relaxation, fun, and disappointment. When this big economic slump finally turns around, we’ll at least be a little wiser, have some interesting experiences to BS about later, and some may even discover careers they like better than Product Management.
Not to be trite, but it’s also important to keep a positive attitude. It amazes me (in a really bad way) when you see news stories about people going completely over the edge because they’ve lost their job, they’re going to lose their house, etc. Maybe it’s my inner-cynic that compels me to read books like “Survive!” with glee, and all miraculous survival stories point out that the will to survive is the most important factor. Yeah, I’m being overly dramatic in my comparison, but it’s to make a point:
If a dude can manage to survive over 2 months in a life raft drifting through shark infested waters, you can survive being unemployed for a few months on dry land surrounded by Starbucks.
Oh, and my favorite motivational video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6rE0EakhG8
Enjoy ;)
It’s especially hard to change careers in risk-averse times like these. But you can spin it another way; with so many people looking, if it doesn’t work out it would easy to replace you!
{ 1 trackback }