No, I’m not talking about my house or my backside. I’m talking about the word I’ve heard and have been using with my clients that I never imagined I would use—it’s okay to “settle” for less! In the old days, the days where jobs were easier to come by and people could hold out for their “dream” job, I would rarely encourage people to “settle” or take a job just to take a job. With the economic downturn, employers becoming lean and mean, the job search process becoming longer and tougher, I don’t encourage my clients to turn down a job offer when it isn’t in their area of interest or the “dream” match. If it means they keep their house or car and have to work a job that may not be the best match, I vote with keeping the house and paying the bills. I don’t like it but I like even less the idea of my clients going deeper in debt while they wait.

So what can we do to keep the dream alive when the client may have to take a survival job?

• Help clients discover positive support groups to join.
• Encourage them to engage in some type of healthy activity that allows them to give back or help others.
• Do things to stay healthy—it’s tough to job search and maintain employment when you’re sick.
• Hold them accountable for their job search and don’t let them slide just to be nice.
• Discover ways to help them think outside of their box or industry.
• Tap into other agencies that can help them retrain or go back to school. There’s pockets of money out there for people to return to school. Find them.
• Teach them how to use LinkedIn or other networking sites that can link them with industries or people that can help them discover job leads.
• Help them identify their network. They may think they don’t have one, but they do.
• Teach them how to use their network.

One last thought, maybe “settling’ can actually turn into a dream job. If clients take a “settle” job, help them see the positives in the job and how they are gaining new skills that will make them more employable when their industry recovers and things turn around—as they will.

What are you doing to help clients get through these tough times?

Photo by Bernard Pollack