How to Survive a Career Bust

While we don't quite have the same data for India, what's obvious is that thousands of people with 10 to 25 years of non-stop work experience in the Indian corporate sector have hit a speed bump. And that speed bump threatens to derail careers. Many of these are people I have known for years. I can see the effect this is having on their families, their sense of self-worth, their physical and mental health, and their outlook on life. That is why it's so important to know how to deal with a "career bust", and also to have a plan to avoid one.

Who are we talking about? Two categories really:

• Thousands of Indians in the US and other countries who built a great career there for many years , and are now realising the cold brutality of the economic climate there (India will be the same one day !) . Many of them have lost their jobs, and are (correctly) looking to return to the relatively favourable growth environment of India. I see this group as more fortunate than the others – they are likely to have built up a nice nest egg.
• Professional executives in India with 20 or more years of work experience who have been "let go" either because they made wrong career choices recently (moved from a large MNC job to a CEO role in a mid-sized company with questionable credentials), or have paid a personal price for poor business performance.

I'd like to focus on this second category, and there are 3 reasons why:

• I come across a very large number of them, and I empathise with them
• They are a forerunner of things to come – many young executives of today will be in the same situation 10 years later if they don't watch out
• If this group of senior experienced executives don't tackle their problems, there could be serious consequences. At age 45, once you leave the ranks of the professionally employed, you may not return. That's a sobering thought when you have 25-35 years of your life still left to go!

So what do you do when you're 42-52 years old, have had a good-to-great career for 20-30 years, probably in the private corporate sector, and are now unemployed ? Trite as it sounds, the first step is to accept the reality, and even to recognize what's positive about that reality.

I know the Indian CEO of a well known U.S. financial services company who was asked to go. The business had suffered huge credit losses and he was held accountable. The news also was widely reported. This was a professional who had been glorified for becoming a CEO at the young age of 36, who ran organizations with a thousand people, who people came to for favours, jobs and business alliances. And now he was a pariah, no longer sought out for lunch or coffee. It shouldn't be hard to imagine the games this played with his mind and his ego.

So, what to do? First come to terms with the situation, analyse and accept it, take some but not all the blame, and start planning the next step. Most corporate careerists feel burnt out after years of the rat-race, so there must be something positive in being out of it, even if it is involuntary. The trick is to figure out what path to take now. Here are a few questions to ask, which might lead to answers.

Do I want to try and revive my corporate career?

• What are my core competencies and strengths?
• What businesses or sectors can I be in? If I have been in retail banking for most of my career, can I be in allied sectors like insurance or asset management?
• What really excites me – growth, turnarounds, start-ups? Can my expertise and vast business experience be of help to smaller companies which do not normally have access to my kind of talent?
• Can I use my experience in consulting, venture investing or private equity type situations?

What assets and equity have I built up through my career, and how can I leverage these now that I really need them?

• Which companies could I work with? And who do I know at these companies?
• Which search consultants have I built relationships with, when I didn't need their help?
• What am I really good at – ideas, people, networks , communication ?

Is this a good opportunity to take more control of my life and start a non-corporate career?

• Do I have enough financial assets to not worry about a large monthly paycheck?
• If yes, should I start my own business, something that I have always wanted to do?
• Can I start a consulting firm to mentor and incubate young entrepreneurs? Or will this be seen as a refuge for the unemployed?

Are there others who I can partner with in any of these endeavours?

Is this setback actually an answer to a prayer?

• I spent the last few years rueing the absence of work-life balance – should I get one now?
• I was so obsessed with my career I burnt all my relationships. With my friends, my parents , even my wife . Is this an opportunity to make up for lost time?
• I didn't see my children growing up. Should I at least see them grown-up?
• I was burning my physical candle at both ends – is this a chance to rebuild my body?
• I've done enough for myself; maybe its time to do something for others ? Perhaps I can write? Or teach? Or coach & counsel?

These are not easy questions to ask, or to answer. But the only one way to tackle the questions is through clarity of thought and positive outlook. In the stock market, a bust is always followed by a boom. What looks like a career setback can be an opportunity to leap into a new phase of life altogether.