my husband's going to lose his job and I'm scared

[xzyabc]

Just that really.

My DH is pretty sure that he is going to lose his job. He is quite senior but says that his industry is in rapid decline, and he doesn't know what he does any more. In other words, he has been promoted to managerial level but now has lost touch with the specific skills and experience that got him there. He is clearly very worried about the possibility of finding a new job, although I think trying to hide it from me. I have no idea what to do and I'm quite scared. Not just about the loss of income, although that of course will be hard, but more even about the damage to his self esteem and confidence. I see this future of him sort of scrapping for work.

I don't know what I'm asking really, but just whether anybody else has been in this situation? How did you manage?

If his industry is in rapid decline he needs to be coming up with an action plan to move into a different industry, identifying what skills and experience he has that might be transferable and identifying what industry he could target.

You need to check whether you have insurance that will pay your mortgage in a redundancy situation and get some sorted if not. As long as no redundancy process has started, this should be doable, but they wouldn't pay out on a process that was already underway.

Do you work? Can you investigate increasing your hours?

Hi Flowery, thanks so much for responding. Yes I do work, full-time, but my salary would not cover our mortgage and out-goings, unfortunately. It will do one day, perhaps three to four years if all goes well, but I'm in my second career and although I've been at it for a while, it's a long hard slog to get to the decent money.

I will check re: redundancy cover. I have a feeling we may already have it.

Re: his industry he seems to suggest that he has reached a level of seniority such that he has almost become deskilled, if that makes sense. He is in a particular industry sector which is obviously where his knowledge lies, and thinks that nobody would employ him to go back to the beginning to learn a new industry sector. I have no idea - I don't know his sector and therefore just don't know what to suggest. One thing I have suggested is that he goes to see a recruitment consultant/headhunter, but he is resisting that idea, partly on the basis that he seems to think they don't place people at his level. I have also wondered about a career coach of some sort, but not sure whether that would be a waste of money.

Of course, I know other people have much greater problems than this, but it is heartbreaking to see him like this, he just seems to have lost all his confidence in the past year, and I feel quite powerless to help.

Xzyabc, recruitment consultants work at almost all levels of a business, is your DH sure about that? Either way, does he have a good linkedin profile with plenty of connections? He needs to be more visible to the right people, LinkedIn is a good place to start.

Hi Tigerlily, Yes that's what I thought about recruitment consultants - I think this has something to do with his lack of confidence. And yes, he does have an amazing linkedin profile, so hopefully that would help! Thanks for responding

Managerial-level skills tend to be very transferable across industry sectors. Depending on what his background is then maybe getting something like a project management or finance qualification might be worth considering as well.

It sounds the the major problem here is a massive loss in confidence and all kinds of (probably / hopefully) unrealistic fearful predictions about his future employability.

Can you find him some good books 'what colour is your parachute' www.amazon.co.uk/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2013/dp/1607741474/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373532871&sr=1-1&keywords=What+Colour+Is+Your+Parachute%3F is one I've heard of, there may be better ones; see if he can find other people who have transitioned or found a way to make it work, mentoring kind of thing; and yes definitely go to the recruitment consultants, not to look for a job but to see if they can work with people like him!

The difficulty is that once people lose confidence then they find it very hard to test out these negative predictions, as they are scared of them being confirmed - of hearing someone saying 'God, you are useless! How have you bluffed this far!' Which of course doesn't happen, but the fear leads to massive avoidance, which does actually lead to problems.

yes management skiils are transferable and so start by looking at ads for Management jobs and note down what they are looking for then see if dh can apply Nb To boost condifence dh should write down all his skills.
Also could you relocate as it seems easier to get a new job if you are prepared to move

Recruitment consultants do place peole at all levels,
my husband does and works with very senior job roles. Good luck :-)