When You Must Change Your Job Skills to Beat the Recession

A few decades ago, every railroad train had a caboose on the end of it where a conductor and brakeman sat and communicated via radio with the engineers driving the locomotive. Look at a train in the U.S. today and you will see no caboose—only a flashing red light at the very end. If you had aspirations to one day become a freight train conductor then you might as well forget it because you won’t find a job. And such will be the case for many Americans who will lose their jobs in the current recession plaguing the U.S. economy. And it will be difficult to find another job at the same level while the U.S. economy is burdened with a recession. This is a situation where one has to do some careful skills evaluation and try new things in order to have sustainable income. So how do you go about changing your skills when you have limited resources and a short time to do it? Let’s look at some things to consider:

Are you afraid to get your hands dirty? You can either exist on the unemployment compensation or do a job that will get you a little dirtier than you are used to. There was once a computer programmer who was laid off during a mild recession after an entire branch office closed down. The computer programmer had once worked in a paper warehouse managing paper stock, unloading trucks, and shipping orders. He saw an ad for someone to unload books for display at book shows plus put the unsold books back into the storage area at the end of the day. This particular job reminded him of his job in the paper warehouse in high school and it turned out to be a fun job that did not pay minimum wage.

Are you in serious need of a skills upgrade? You don’t have to go to an expensive college or adult continuing education class to beef up your skills. It might be as simple as reading a few books and trying your hand at the new skill to get a job in this recession. Our previous example showed a computer programmer who was laid off from his COBOL programming job. Anyone who knows programming knows that there is not too much demand for COBOL programmers in the job market—even without a recession. One computer programmer had to get a book on Visual Basic plus purchase the software and begin learning programming this language. That knowledge would later get him a programming job again but this time, he was able to honestly say he was skilled in Visual Basic which was one of the requirements of the position. The key is to position yourself by updating your skills so you are ready when the recession is over.

What is it that interests you? You might be one who likes to travel and you have a few places you have been. You could sit down and write a few travel articles and submit them to publishers and webmasters looking for that type of information. Writing opportunities are somewhat recession-proof. Maybe you like to shop and run the home operations. There are senior centers where retired people are looking for help around their homes like cleaning and shopping. Maybe you’re good with the tools. Many people are so busy that all they need is a handyman service to take care of nagging repairs they can’t get to.