Ways to help yourself and your career
What you can do to help yourself when faced when
economic upheaval is:

1. Whether through a 401(k) plan,
a 403(k), a regular IRA, a Roth IRA, a Simplified Employee
Pension, Keogh account (if those still exist), the Thrift
Fund (C Fund) if you're a federal employee, or just do
it on your own -- is start contributing to an S&P
500 index fund.

The Vanguard family of mutual funds has a good one, and there
are others.

An index fund directly tracks the ups and
downs of the top 500 companies in America. Yes, your
fund will go down when the market goes down and that
will happen sometimes (such as the past 3 years), but
in LONG RUN you will get rich.

You are not investing money in any one particular
company, so you don't have to do any
research -- you are investing in the economy of
the United States. In the long run, our economy is
going to rise.

Just think of the 20th century. If you'd invested
money in an index fund on January 1, 1900, by
December 31, 1999 it would have been multiplied
1000s of times -- despite two world wars, the
rise of Communism, revolutions around the globe,
the Crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression, etc.

If all of the above could not stop our economy from
expanding and prospering, what could?

Only large-scale, utter catastrophes such as all-out nuclear wars,
ecological disasters, alien invasions etc.

If any of those things happen, I guarantee you'll
either be dead or focussing on things other than
your investment portfolio anyway :)

By investing this way, in the long run you'll beat
the results of 99% of all mutual fund managers and
with much less risk and effort.

I won't go into all the reasons why this is true
since this is not an investing blog. If you're
interested, check out A RANDOM WALK DOWN WALL STREET by Burton Malkiel and
STOCKS FOR THE LONG RUN by Jeremy Siegel.

The important part is, you'll have your own stake in
the overall prosperity of the United States and
the world (since most of the 500 largest
American companies also do lots of business in
other countries).

With your own money on the line, you'll start
waking up from your peon/employee mentality
and begin rooting for higher profits for American
corporations.

2. Upgrade your skills.

Get trained and certified in your field or any
field you wish to go into.

The recovery is still in its early stages. That
means that employment is still lagging behind
the red-hot demand for techies we saw in the late
90s.

When companies start hiring again, they'll go for
experience first and take the techies who have
not already taken other jobs.

Demand for skilled labor such as techies will
grow red-hot again, but it will take time. After all,
the last recession occurred about 1991-92. It
started ending just as Clinton took office in 1/1993, in
time to claim credit for the recovery. However, it was not
until 1995 that the stock market began its
famous boom period, and the Internet and the
growth of networking created the huge demand for
techies of the late 90s.

In fact, in February 1996 -- as President Clinton
was running for re-election -- the unemployment
rate was 5.5%. Just one-tenth of a percentage point
lower than the 5.6% it was in February 2004.

Funny how -- now that a Republican president is
the incumbent up for re-election -- we're in a
"jobless" recovery at 5.6%.

When a Democrat president was up for re-election
with a 5.5% unemployment rate, there was no
talk of a "jobless" recovery. Everybody said
then that the economy was already recovered.

What a difference one-tenth of a percentage point
makes!

So, this is a good time to prepare yourself for
better times to come.

3. Upgrade your expectations for yourself.

This sounds like more positive thinking, I know --
but c'mon -- do you really think that you are
good only for the untrained grunt work that a
Sudanese peasant who can't even write their own
language can do?

The fact is, Americans cost so much in terms of
money, education etc -- that we're not
economical as grunt labor.

OK, computer programming is not grunt labor --
but it's become so routine and such a common
skill that it's become the intellectual equivalent.

Now, that applies strictly to rote software
development according to specifications given
you by your boss.

If you can program software that is either
entertaining or useful for ordinary people,
you can create for yourself a large part time or
full time income developing such programs and
then selling them over the Internet. See:


Market Your Software

Think of yourself as a unique individual with
talents, ideas, skills and viewpoints that can
serve people. You are creative. What about YOU
can help a lot of people? What about you is so
personal and unique that it is worth money to
other people?

Don't ask me -- I don't know you. But I do know
that something about you is worth more to the
world than being just another part of an assembly
line. Leave that to workers in Mexico. Not
because they aren't creative and unique people too --
they are -- but because they have less opportunity
to express that. In time, as their economy
and technology improve, they'll start competing more
with Americans in more intellectual fields on a
massive basis -- so get a head start now while you
can!

You have an education, you have exposure to the
vast media and you have a computer and the
Internet. Many 1000s of people are using their
unique skills and creativity and these tools
to make a living.

You can too.

4. Change careers.

I recently heard a man call into a radio show. He was
an engineer laid off in the wake of September 11 (the
potential that attack had for economic disaster had
for the entire country -- not just the travel
industry or New York City -- has been widely
underestimated. President Bush and American workers
have not been given enough credit for preventing
it. Osama bin Laden thought he would not just
destroy some buildings, he expected that to plunge
us into a tremendous economic depression).

Anyway, this man on the radio couldn't find another
job as an engineer. Unlike some technicians who
would rather collect unemployment than take a
job "beneath" them, he went to work as a window cleaner.

Does that violate my above advice? Not really. Because
any honest labor is better than sitting on your
hands. And Sudanese peasants cannot wash the dirty
windows in your locality.

Besides, he took my advice to upgrade his concept of
himself. He still washes windows -- but now has his
own business, including 3 employees. So he is
feeding himself and his family, 3 employees and
their families and possibly is or will make more
money by running his own business than he did as
an engineer.

That leads to the next idea.

5. Start your own business.

When you're the boss, will you lay yourself off?

In THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR the authors describe
the viewpoint of many self-employed small
business people (all millionaires). Someone running
a pest exterminator business may have a 1000
customers. Although some of those 1000 "bosses"
will lay them off, they will still have a lot more
customers/bosses to rely on.

They see that as real security. Those of us who
are employees may get a regular paycheck every two
weeks, but we have only one "boss" -- and if
we lose that one source of income, we don't have
999 others.

Thanks to the Internet, you can start a small
online business and work part time until you're
making enough money to quit your day job. Even
if that never happens, making that extra money
will improve your lifestyle and/or increase your
financial security. And it will be easier to
go from part time to full time if you are ever
forced to through a lay off, than to start from
scratch.

Plus, having your own business has many tax
breaks that employees don't receive.

To find out how to make money on the Internet, go
to:


SuperAffiliate Handbook

You can also go into such traditional areas as
real estate, vending and network marketing. Do
your due diligence first because there are many
scams associated with all three areas -- as with
many home business opportunities and with all
kinds of businesses for that matter -- but people
are still buying homes and renting apartments,
buying cans of soda and candy bars out of machines
and referring good products to each other. Some
people make good to fantastic money.

6. Become a salesperson.

Wow, I bet you weren't expecting THAT, were you?

One thing many people don't know -- sales is the
highest paid profession. Top commissioned
salespeople have no cap on their incomes. Even
the CEO of a major corporation gets only a
pre-defined amount on his paycheck every two weeks.

Successful people can potentially make more.

My mother has a friend with a daughter who has
made a million dollars in one year by selling
something related to telephones -- twice what
her husband, a vice-president at Mastercard,
makes.

There's also a lot of opportunity in sales, I
admit, because there's a high turnover rate -- due
partially to many people quitting.

That's good because it means that almost anyone
can get a job at some level of sales. It does
mean you'll have to learn sales skills and work
hard and find prospects and sell them on your
product and service.

I didn't say it was easy. It can be frustrating
for a lot of people, who decide they prefer
"security."

However, let me remind you of something. No matter
what your job is or who you work for, your job
depends on salespeople doing their jobs. If car
salespeople don't sell cars, General Motors and
Ford lay off workers. I work for the government,
yet my job depends on politicians convincing
American citizens that they should continue to
vote money to my agency every year. Plus, if
salespeople in the private sector don't sell
their products, nobody makes money and that
means no tax dollars for the government to
pay me with.

So look at it this way -- your income depends on
salespeople doing their jobs. If they stopped,
the entire U.S. economy would collapse and we'd
all be out of work.

So you can either be one of those salespeople and
depend directly on your efforts and reap the
majority of the reward for your success. You are
in control.

Or you can depend on salespeople you don't know
and don't see to do their job. You have no
control over whether they are hanging out by
the water cooler or cold-calling prospects.

Even if you don't remain in sales, the experience
of learning how to present yourself, speak in
a positive way, get people's opinions and find
their "hot buttons" are all valuable skills in
other professions and in your personal life as
well.

7. Become a consultant.

Yes, it's a cliche. Laid off executive can't get
re-hired anywhere, so becomes a "consultant."

Yet at least some people make it work. My oldest
friend walked away from a good job at Wal-Mart
because he was sick of the rat race. He became
a consultant advising companies wanting to do business
with Wal-Mart and now is busy jetting around
the world. Last I heard, he was in Saudi Arabia.

8. Upgrade your experience with your skills.

Now is the time to beg or borrow (NOT steal, let's
stay honest here, all right?) experience in
whatever area of IT you want to work or in ANY
area of IT.

Look for part time work, temporary work -- bribe
current techies just to let you
watch them. Volunteer for local governments,
local charities. Beg your friends with home
businesses to let you hook their PCs up into
a network, paying you a dollar so you can say
they hired you.

(Paid experience counts for more than unpaid
experience, but unpaid experience is way better
than none.)

Go to:

Freelance

Freelance Site

and look for any listed jobs you can do and put in bids for them.

9. Work for the government, especially if you're a programmer
over age 25.

The government is officially forbidden from discriminating against
people due to their age. If you're 60 and the most otherwise
qualified candidate, they're supposed to hire you.

There's a great need in the government for qualified techies. My
own agency is using many programs developed by current
employees who are NOT techies but who have developed some
programs from Microsoft Access. These employees perform the same
job as I do, but evidently learned programming skills on their
own and then were allowed to use them for these job related
programs.

In my view, it's obvious from their amateurish user
interfaces that they're done by amateurs (although they
do work.)

My agency is determined to go to a paperless "environment" and
I think means to integrate all the many and varied programs
we're using now into something more coherent and efficient,
but it will take a lot of time and effort.

We are not hiring people at my job level now, but possibly they
can and are hiring programmers or other techies.

I don't know about current hiring at the Department of Homeland
Defense, IRS or other agencies, but they all need
techies to maintain and advance their systems. Particularly the
Department of Homeland Defense, since they are integrating several
different agencies which used to be separate, and that
means they had separate, probably incompatible, computer
systems.

Although government jobs are spread out over the country,
serious systems work is probably concentrated at headquarters,
in most agencies, so be prepared to move to Washington DC or
Baltimore.

Of course, if you're after the Big Time in your career,
the government is NOT where you'll want to stay. The pay
is limited to whatever your grade and step are. Plus, it
is quite bureaucratic -- hardly entreprenial.

The rule of thumb I've heard is that if you work for
the government for over five years, you are then
"ruined" for private employment. Which means that if
you apply for jobs in the private sector after that,
you'll be looked down upon and not hired, at least for
any good jobs.

However, if you do qualify, the government is a good place to
go for 2-3 years and get experience while you're
waiting for the job market to heat back up to 1998
levels. It might take that long, and in the meantime
you'll be gaining experience rather than sitting on
the sidelines.

Don't go past the five year mark, however, unless
you've decided to make it your career until
retirement. That could be a good plan for those
of you who are programmers older than 30. The private
sector considers you over the hill anyway.

The "job security" aspect of federal employment is
Waaaaayyyyyy over-hyped. Believe it not, you CAN
be fired. The good news is, it won't be because
your company lost an important contract. If you
can perform your job well, you'll hang on to it
for as long as your agency needs your skills.

10. Acquire business skills, especially if you are
a techie or in any technical field.

Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again --
techies are tools. So are engineers and
accountants. You are to be used and
written off when you're no longer useful to the
overall interests of your employer. That's the
hard truth.

Small wonder that if you can be replaced by a
cheaper but just as functional tool in India
or The Philippines, you will be.

So one way to make yourself more valuable is to
join your employer in spirit and help them
achieve their goals from a business-like point
of view, not simply as a technical person.

For instance, Project Management is a
business skill that can be particularly useful
to techies. See:

IT Project+

and

PMI Certifications

Allan Hoffman, the Monster.com Tech Jobs Expert, puts
it in his words here:

Are You More Than Just a Techie?

11. Support an end to excess regulation of businesses in
the U.S., support reducing taxes on businesses in
the U.S. and support tort reform to put an end to
outrageous lawsuits by employees and customers.

If you want to reduce the outsourcing of American jobs
overseas by American companies, help reduce the cost
of doing business in this country.

Some years ago, I went horseback riding with a party of
friends in a "developing" country. About halfway through
our ride on a hot day, we came across a small store
selling bottles of soda, chips and candy. Naturally
we stopped and bought some.

I couldn't help but think that, in the U.S., the woman
operating this store would be forced onto welfare. It
was an extremely ramshackle small building, made of VERY old
and warped, weatherhewn boards. The seats were extremely old and
worn. The average ten year old could level it in one
minute with a sledgehammer. The soda bottles were kept
cold with ice in a very rusty cooler.

In short, this store violated about every law
in the United States. If she dared to open it anywhere
in this country, she would be shut down immediately.

Yet the old men playing chess at one of the only two
tables didn't seem to care, and neither did I or my
thirsty and hungry friends. I doubt she made much
money, but apparently it helped to support her and
her family.

I can't help but point out that although the Democrats
claim to be against the outsourcing of jobs, they are
the party largely in favor of over-regulating business,
thus driving the costs of doing business in this
country higher, thus encouraging companies to take
their jobs to more business-friendly climates.

Taxes are the second skyrocketing expense facing American
businesses, so reducing them for businesses would help
keep jobs in this country.

Unfortunately, the Democrats love to appeal to a
"soak the rich" and "soak businesses" mentality and
raise taxes. So much for how well they'd encourage
business to remain in this country.

Another possibility is called the Fair Tax. I am
not advocating it, since I have not had time to study and
evaluate it -- but its proponents claim that it would
eliminate taxes on business and thereby make the
U.S. an extremely attractive country in which to do
business. Not only would American companies stay,
many foreign companies would want to come here and
bring jobs with them. Check it out at:

Fair Tax

Tort reform is also necessary to encourage U.S. businesses
to remain in this country. One reason employment is
such a lagging economic indicator is because hiring
unnecessary or unqualified employees can bring so many
legal problems. Everybody who gets fired, for whatever reason,
starts screaming about racism, sexism or some other
form of discrimination. Plus, many customers love to
sue businesses.

Predatory lawyers used to be called ambulance chasers --
now they are far more sophisticated. They go after
entire industries, hoping to rip them off for big money,
claiming to be protecting the poor, helpless stupid child-like
consumers such as you and I and just incidentally
making themselves rich in the process.

The Democratic party is hopelessly in the clutches of
these legal beagle special interests. One of them,
John Edwards, just came in 2nd in the primary battle
for the presidential nomination.

Remember that their wealth comes out of YOUR
pocket. Because when companies must pay out these
huge lawsuit settlements, they raise the prices of
their goods and services. So these trial lawyers
are getting rich at YOUR expense.

Until they are reined in, every company doing
business in the U.S. must fear the threat of
extortionistic lawsuits -- and therefore must
think about getting out of the country while the
getting is good. To go to a country where lawsuits
are reserved for actual negligence or wrongful
actions.

To sum all the above up, look closely at yourself --
your life, your experiences, your work history,
your talents and skills and how you see the
world and find what about you and who you are
that someone else would pay for.

Find your current strengths and identify what you
can do to increase them.

If you need to, get help from experts who can see
you a lot more objectively than you can see
yourself. Go to:

Career Advantage

best,
Rick Stooker, author
Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career
- posted by RickStooker @ 8:42 AM