We may be recovering from our recession, but the ripple effects remain. Last year, I mostly met people who had been laid off from their companies. This year, I’m seeing the company owners, including nonprofit directors.
These are the last-out-the-door folks who made the difficult decisions about laying off others before finally firing themselves. In some cases, the grief of losing the company brings tears as we talk. But mostly people feel relieved that the struggle is over, and ready to focus on finding work.
It turns out that the most difficult part of this process isn’t the job search itself. Rather, the biggest challenge is usually finding words to discuss this turn of events. Even conversations with friends seem insurmountable when the story begins: “I failed. I lost the company.”
And failure is often the feeling these leaders describe. After all, if it’s not their fault, whose is it? Who took out the extra loan, or couldn’t find enough support, or didn’t read the trends quickly enough? In nonprofits, the regret can be compounded by a sense of having let down the community the agency served.
Whether the sense of failure is justified or not, it’s a terrible way to present oneself to new employers. Everyone knows this, but the words just seem to tumble out, especially when networking. Taking time off before starting the search helps alleviate this problem, but it isn’t always possible. However exhausted one’s mental reserves may be from the long struggle, the finances are usually worse off.
If this has happened to you, and a job search is not optional, your best strategy is to learn how to tell the story.
As a starting point, you want to avoid: taking too much blame for the closing, passing too much blame to someone/something else (including the recession), feeling too ashamed to speak of it, and worst of all, breaking the cardinal rule of interviewing by not showing the next employer how your experiences and skills can benefit him or her.
This will take practice, which is why networking matters. The more you tell the story, the better you’ll get. Your goal is to describe the closing without dwelling on it. You must then direct the conversation smoothly to your current goals, the key assets you would bring to the next employer, or even the skills you’ve picked up as a result of the last situation.
Wondering what those skills might be? The following short list might be true for key assistants as well as for business leaders. Think back over the last months, and you’ll find some more.
- Reviewing and recasting financial information.
- Working with creditors, negotiating terms, renegotiating leases.
- Seeking or meeting with potential buyers for the business.
- Reporting to the board; presenting alternative scenarios.
- Taking down equipment, selling inventory and otherwise liquidating assets.
- Reducing staff, including reassigning duties over a smaller team.
- Conducting public relations or customer relations during a long shutdown.
- Managing tax and government reporting obligations.
- Shutting down or selling the building, or working through foreclosure processes.
Once you reframe things, you’ll begin to see how much you can bring to the next employer. Try telling your story along these lines:
“When it became clear the company couldn’t survive, I had to find the best way to close while balancing the needs of everyone involved. It was a very difficult period, but I feel good about the decisions we made. I’m a good problem-solver, and good in a crisis. I’m also good at handling reduced budgets and staffing, which seems to be a common situation these days. But at heart, I’m still a [marketer, accountant, program planner -- name your profession here]. I’m excited about the products your company is rolling out, and I’d like to talk more about how I can play a role.”
Your goal is to focus on the tasks of the new job, while standing ready to describe things you did as part of the closing. Practice for curveball questions as well, such as “What did you do that led to the company closing?” One possible answer: “I can’t be sure of the turning point, but I’d say that relying too much on our key customer was probably the most damaging. It was a hard lesson to learn, but my experience in that situation is one of the things I’d bring on board here.”
After time and practice, this will get easier. Remember that the main message about your performance will be coming from you, which is why you need to present it well.
Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 626 Armstrong Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102.
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