the outplacement service I’m entitled to as part of my severance looks like it would be awesome. I went to an orientation yesterday and they went through all their services. I get a personal consultant to help through the whole process and they cover everything from figuring out what you want to be when you grow up to negotiating offers. They have seminars on a huge variety of job hunting topics, offices you can use, along with word processing, printing, copying and fax services. Plus, you can put the service on hold at any time and pick it up later, so the 6 months of service can take almost as long as I want. So, that’s pretty cool. I’ll probably start in the next few weeks and at least go through the figuring-out-what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up part and see where I go from here.
It was pretty sobering being there, though. The session I was in was full and they said that every one they’ve been running has been full. People were there from every field you can imagine. The folks ran the gamut from a couple like me, who are looking for opportunities to do something completely different, to one guy who seemed totally panicked by his situation. He pretty much wanted every service they have right.this.very.minute. Most were somewhere in the middle – not particularly happy about their situation, but determined to work hard to get out of it.
There was a remarkable amount of hope in the room. Hope is good.
I took all the outplacement services, and it was well worth it. I was a bit complacent about job hunting but they kinda jolted me out of that, my bloaty old resume got a good buff, and my interview skills got an update (they’re at version 2.2.3 now)
Most significant thing though was about how important networking is to helping you understand what’s out there that might suit you, and moving on it. From your posts it sounds like that comes naturally to you, that you have plenty of resources, and that you (I hate this word…) leverage them.
It’s good to have a plan, but I was pleasantly surprised by what shakes out when you get chatting to folks and they hear that you’re looking around. And then those folks talk to other folks.
Also, being outside of the corporate fuzziness and career structure helps you to be open to a far greater variety of opportunities (and ones where what YOU actually want carries more weight!)