 Starting
over after Katrina
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At some point in our lives, many
of us will want to find a new career. Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina
made it a necessity for many of its victims. Here's my advice on
how to rebuild your career after a disaster.
I'll focus on people affected by Hurricane Katrina,
but much of the counsel is applicable to more personal disasters
such as the loss of a loved one or being fired.
Get started now. Wallowing makes
it worse. Despite what shrinks say, most of my clients have found
that the faster you act, the less likely you are to descend into
depression and inaction.
Another reason to move forward quickly is that unfortunately,
the half-life of people's sympathy is short. Remember the tsunami
in Southast Asia? For a few days, donors were generous, but they
quickly turned to the disaster du jour. Strike while the iron is
hot.
This is an opportunity for something bigger and better.
Aim for something more exciting than your previous job. That will
help motivate you to do the hard work necessary to rebuild. You
have reason for optimism because the unemployment rate is low, and
because it's easier to land a job when the reason you're looking
is a natural disaster. No need to say you didn't like your boss
or were fired.
Not sure what you want to be? A deceptively simple,
yet effective, approach is to use the free career-finding tools
on www.acinet.org.
For more offbeat careers, scan the profiles of 500-plus careers
in my book, "Cool Careers for Dummies."
Still can't figure out a specific career goal? Don't
worry. Just identify a core ability or two that you'd like to use
in your next career and where you'd like to use it. For example,
one of my clients wants to use his ability to manage people and
stay calm under pressure to ideally work for a nonprofit.
When in doubt, consider careers in which jobs are
likely to remain plentiful.
- I'm not convinced that the
decision will be made to rebuild the areas destroyed by Hurricane
Katrina. The cost may be deemed too enormous, and it may be decided
to simply assist the individuals and businesses in relocating.
Therefore, I believe it's too early to support the widely held
prediction that Katrina will create an enormous need for engineers,
architects and construction contractors. There, of course, will
be some need for those professionals to accommodate individuals
and businesses moving to other cities.
- Families affected by Katrina
will disproportionately relocate permanently to nearby large cities
and their suburbs: Memphis, Tenn., Houston, Dallas and Miami,
as well as to smaller cities such as St. Petersburg, Fla., and
Jacksonville, Fla. One of their first priorities will be to enroll
their children in school. Therefore, I predict jobs as teachers
and counselors in those cities will be available. For the same
reason, I believe that jobs as real estate leasing and buying
agents, and in building, construction and related fields such
as telephone and TV cable installers will be strong in those cities.
- In hurricane-prone areas, home
and business owners will be motivated to make their homes and
businesses hurricane-ready. Contractors specializing in that sort
of work should find themselves with plenty of customers.
- There is, and will continue
to be, an enormous need for trucks and boats to move hurricane-ruined
property to dump sites and recycling centers. If I wanted to start
a business to address the needs created by Hurricane Katrina,
I'd consider that one of the safer bets.
- Government jobs of all sorts.
In my view, the poor response of the government to Katrina (and
previous hurricanes such as Hugo) provides yet more evidence that
the private sector does a better job of providing services. I'd
bet that if Wal-Mart were in charge of providing disaster relief,
food and water would have gotten to the victims far faster and
for far fewer of our tax dollars. Nevertheless, I predict that
government employment, which was growing before Katrina, will
do so even more now, especially in Homeland Security, FEMA, etc.
No doubt, the government will now prioritize hurricane preparations
in every vulnerable region, just as after the terrorist attacks
and subsequent attempted attacks, the government mandated that
before boarding a plane, everyone take off their shoes.
- A listing of 19,000 currently open federal
jobs is online at www.usajobs.opm.gov.
It also has an online tool to help match your interests and skills
with the available jobs.
- In the Katrina-affected region, jobs will
be less plentiful in state and local governments because tax revenues
will rapidly dissipate. Why? Because many businesses and individuals
will have left, and many of those that remain will have less income
on which to pay taxes.
- Tourism business that would have gone to
New Orleans will now be spread across the rest of the United States,
creating jobs in hotel management.
Consider moving to a locale
in which jobs are plentiful
Florida created 250,000 new jobs in the last year. Warren May, spokesman
for the state-run Agency for Workforce Innovation, says, "Professional
and business services such as banking and insurance have been leading
the jobs growth. And health-care services are right up there because
of Florida's large senior population. And there has been a remarkable
turnaround in manufacturing."
Florida's unemployment rate: 4.4 percent.
And Florida doesn't even have the nation's lowest
rate. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, these states
do: Wyoming (2.9 percent), Hawaii (3 percent), Virginia (3 percent),
North Dakota (3.3 percent) and South Dakota (3.7 percent).
Jobs are moving from the major cities. According to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cities reporting the most job
growth in the past year: Yuma, Ariz., (+10.8 percent), St. George,
Utah (+ 9.6 percent), Las Vegas/Paradise, Nev., (+7.4 percent),
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (+6.9 percent), Blacksburg-Christiansberg-Radford,
Va., (+6.4 percent) and Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Wash., (+5.8 percent).
Among large cities, the worst performer was Detroit (-1.1 percent.)
Use connections to find new
work.
Most jobs are filled not through the want ads but through personal
connections. So, phone everyone in your extended personal and professional
network, even people you haven't spoken with in years, and say something
like, "Hi! We haven't spoken in years so you might wonder why
I'm calling. I lost my job as the result of Hurricane Katrina and
am looking for work, ideally (insert the type of work you want --
for example, "that would use my skill as a trainer, ideally
in a small company.") Might you know someone I should talk
with?"
If you are a person of faith, this is a good time
to invoke it. If not, have faith in yourself and your fellow man.
Corny as it sounds, success is largely a matter of
putting one foot in front of the other and asking for help when
you need it.
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