Beat Redundancy Blues – How redundancy changed my life!

Sandra Bellamy, owner and founder of World Of Quirky and Beat Redundancy Blues, had a life changing moment when she was made redundant for the second time in her career in 2009.

“When I was made redundant for the second time in my career, it changed my life. At first I felt my gut was wrenched from me, worried about my future, concerned about finances, bewildered and lost, I just didn’t know what I was going to do.

A couple of weeks later I began to feel relieved that it was over.  I thought about the negative aspects of the job I had just left and focused on what I could change about my life and my future career to make me happy. Rather than just being in a job that I was good at, I began to see and understand what job I was meant to be doing. I assessed-

What I was passionate about?

What made me happy?

What did I ultimately want to do with my life?

I came up with two answers:

1. To be a writer
2. To help people who have been made redundant to get back into work

I now do both of these.”

Working in retail over 18 years, Sandra has spent 7 of those years in management roles.  Part of her role as a Manager, was to interview, recruit, train and coach staff.

During her career, Sandra has been made redundant twice and each time she has successfully got back into work and worked her way back up the ladder. She has in-depth knowledge, insight and experience of the recruitment process both as a recruiter and as someone who has being interviewed for a job.

Sandra’s knowledge and expertise includes:

• What employers are looking for in a CV and cover letter
• The importance of a cover letter in securing an interview
• What mistakes to avoid in a job application to increase your chances of being selected for an interview
• What employers are looking for when sifting through a pile of job applications
• How and what to prepare for an interview
• The mistakes potential employees need to avoid before the interview and during the interview
• What action needs to be taken after an interview
• The significance of keeping records in order to avoid embarrassment and get that job

Sandra likes to take both a practical and holistic view of redundancy. Sandra believes than in order to stand a chance of gaining employment success, you need to nourish your inner being first. You need to deal with the grief, stress, anxiety and depression, that often accompanies redundancy, before thinking about gaining employment. Often, these symptoms of redundancy, will be noticed by the employer during an interview and they will not work in your favour. Whilst there are laws against discrimination, it can be hard to prove that you were discriminated against during an interview as the employer can often give a ‘legitimate’ reason as to why he didn’t take you on – “There were candidates that more closely matched our criteria.” Some people can mask these symptoms very well. They can get through the interview and even get the job, but if the employer can sense any of these, then why would they want to risk taking someone on who may need extra time off, call in sick more regularly or have issues working with others because of how they feel about themselves. In reality, managers have to think of their bottom line, of how much value for money they can get out of each employee and how that employee will help to grow the profits of the company. Although employers may be understanding about these mental illnesses after you have been employed by them for a while, if you don’t declare them before you start the job and any of these affect your work in the future, there is a risk that you may be deemed unfit to do the job and lose it.

When I asked Sandra what is so special about beatredundancyblues.com and why should people use it?

She replied, “When I was made redundant for the second time in my career during 2009, I became increasing frustrated that I had to spend hours trawling through website after website trying to find the right job sites, courses sites and recruitment sites, that were relevant to the types of jobs that I wanted to apply for. Whilst I was doing that, it was eating into the time I had to write my CV and cover letter for a job. Sometimes I would spend three or four hours perfecting my CV and cover letter for just one job. I hadn’t really got the time to keep trawling and so I ended up just using the same few sites over and over again and that can be limiting. I also found it hard to find suitable courses in the areas that I wanted to go into and I couldn’t really think of what other courses I may want to do. The great thing about beatredundancyblues is it has access to job sites, recruitment sites and courses sites, from within the one site, saving jobseekers loads of time and giving them a variety of options on ways of getting back into work. It’s free for people to use and health and wellbeing is covered too. It’s a one-stop resource for redundancy and you can’t get better than that.”

beatredundancyblues.com and beatredundancyblues.co.uk are YOUR unique, One-Stop Resources for redundancy. Combining access to Job Sites, Recruitment Sites and Course sites, from within the one site. Offering help, advise, guidance and inspiration, to Motivate and Rejuvenate you back into work. If you are looking for a job or career change, browse beatredundancyblues.com and beatredundancyblues.co.uk now, to boost your job seeking abilities and get going fast. To get more specific and bespoke help, to propel you forward in your life and your new career, contact Sandra Bellamy for Quirky Mentoring or Quirky Coaching.

For Redundancy Inspiration check out www.beatredundancyblues.wordpress.com