The Big Freeze: 6 Ways To Turn It Into An Opportunity
The UK, Europe, parts of Asia and the US are this week in the grip of arctic conditions.
Which means that some of you will struggle to get into work this week, whilst many job seekers will find it difficult to make contact with recruiters and contacts who themselves have struggled to make it into the office.
So you have 2 choices:
a) You can sit around complaining about the weather and travel problems,
or
b) You can create your own weather by turning the big freeze into an opportunity by investing any additional time you have on doing those activities which you never have time for and so give your career a kick start at the beginning of the year.
Here are 6 suggestions on how to turn the freezing lemons into ice cold lemonade this week:
1. Sign up to / update your LinkedIn profile
If you’re not on LinkedIn you’re not on the radar of recruiters and companies looking for people like you. So invest some time this week on creating an updated profile and connect with everyone you know regardless of whether you’re job searching or not
Similarly if you are on LinkedIn but have an outdated profile and/or a limited number of contacts – spend some time this week updating and you can put your marketing on auto pilot over the coming weeks months.
2. Update your resume / CV
It doesn’t matter whether you plan to change jobs or not. You never know when you may see a great job posting, receive an interesting call from a head hunter or find yourself on the wrong side of an internal restructuring. So invest some of that spare time this week on getting the CV/resume updated so that you’re ready when you need it.
3. Research that new career or business idea
Have you had thoughts about changing careers or starting a business? Can’t find the time to get it off the ground?
Well here’s your chance.
If you can’t get into work – or find your week disrupted because others can’t travel – invest the additional time you have on researching and making progress with your career change or new business idea. Whatever your ‘Plan C’ is – get it off the ground this week.
4. Reconnect with old contacts
All the opportunities and contacts you need are in your diary or mobile phone contacts list – or the diaries or mobile phones contacts list of everyone you know. So use any downtime you have this week to reconnect with people you may have lost contact with. Your old boss, ex-colleagues, ex-clients etc.
Just pick up the phone or ping an email to just say ‘hello’ and wish them all the best for 2010. No agenda, no goals, no objectives – you’re just looking to catch up on their news and re-establish the relationship.
5. Create more flexibility in your work schedule
Ever fancied having more flexibility and freedom in your professional life? If so, the big freeze is a great opportunity for you to start making inroads.
If you can’t travel into the office due to the weather, ensure you work your butt off whilst at home on current projects and workload so that you can create measureable results to prove how much more productive you are when you work from home. Then use these results to negotiate more flexibility in working patterns so that you can work with greater degree of flexibility away from the office.
6. Start a blog in 90 minutes
Spend 30 minutes to buy a domain name from www.GoDaddy.com and then head over to www.WordPress.com to create your blog for free. Then spend 60 minutes to create a short and simple article as your first blog post and get it onto the web quickly.
Having set it up, be consistent in sharing ideas, tips and resources related to your area of expertise (or the area that you’re most passionate about) and you will start attracting opportunities you didn’t even know existed.
Quit worrying about the snow and bad weather, and instead start creating your own ‘weather’ by investing some time in yourself. Your car may be stuck in the snow this week, but once the thaw sets in, you’ll be ready to fly…
Article by, Sital Ruparelia and courtesy of CareerHub.com. The Career Hub blog connects job seekers with experts in career counseling, resume writing, personal branding and recruiting.
