After the axe falls.

It’s been a tumultuous period for our industry, with almost unprecedented upheaval.  Newsrooms, in particular, have borne much of the brunt of it and many, many good people have been left out of a job.

Some have found their feet and have moved on, while others are still contemplating what to do next in and out of radio.  It can be a gut-wrenching decision to walk away from the industry and just as tough to start all over again.

Many organisations have brought in outplacement schemes to help staff transition into the next phase of their working life, while others have simply been cut loose and left to go it alone.

If you’re one of those who’ve been taken into an office and had ‘that’ conversation, Andrew Crommelin from The Hunt Recruitment in Melbourne has some advice.

Andrew has extensive experience in human resources, recruitment and in outplacement.

“The key thing is that YOU haven’t been made redundant. The role has been made redundant, not you, which is a pretty big distinction”.

“Businesses will restructure for many different reasons and that can result in job losses that quite often have nothing to do with the individual. Genuine, good quality people DO face redundancies. It’s the way of the working world these days”.

Taking those first steps after being handed an envelope and shown the door can be difficult and confronting. Andrew advises taking a bit of time to ‘grieve’ and re-evaluate before diving back into the jobs pool.

“Evaluate what you really want to do and set yourself down that path.  When you get to that state of mind to take a pretty negative thing and turn it into a positive, then start tapping into some of the key tasks”.

“It might be sharpening up your resume, tapping into your own personal network or creating a LinkedIn profile.  It might be placing your resume of job boards online: the CareerOne or Seek resume boards”.

“Pro-actively looking in the job market may reveal a silver lining to the cloud.  Sometimes it does take a little while to reach that space, but when you do, the next ‘thing’ will appear”.

It can be hard to get back on the merry-go-round.  While traumatic, redundancies are a fact of life these days and there is no need to shy away from the “R” word in a job interview.

As a recruiter, Andrew advises that you be upfront and transparent.  Let them know why you’re in the job market and move on.

In the weeks after a redundancy it can be tough to find that silver lining or turn that negative into a positive.  It can take time, but eventually the pain and hurt does dissipate.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you can look back and laugh about it.  I know I did.