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Careers: How to use career setbacks to your advantage

For many people any major career setback, can be incredibly damaging both mentally and emotionally. These setbacks could come as promotion turn downs, rejections for new jobs, or even your company going out of business. There are so many different setbacks that could potentially affect your career, that it is somewhat important that you should always be prepared for them.

A career setback if unexpected can cause many people to go into depression, lose motivation, and potentially find themselves moving backwards rather than forwards. while this is normally short lived and most people can get back on their feet again within a few years, you shouldn't have to worry about getting back on your feet at all, as long as you know how to deal with these setbacks.

The main thing to remember is that if you assume that something could happen at any time, it's not going to be as big of a surprise to you when it does. This doesn't matter if you've been working at a company for 20 years and suddenly it goes out of business or if you were simply turned down for a job that you had been working for the last 10 years to obtain. Regardless of the setback, stay positive, but expect the unexpected. By saying this, I mean that you should always have a contingent plan just in case something happens that you just didn't expect.

For myself, I find that I always have a backup job in mind. It doesn't matter how secure I may feel, I always have something on the back burner that I'm thinking about. This is because I'm always looking on the many job sites or in newspapers. While I might not be looking aggressively, I make sure that I know what is available on the market at all times, so that I know what I can expect if something were to happen where I had to quickly make a career change. I also do this to ensure that I'm not missing out on a huge job opportunity that I should be vying for.

Another thing that I do is make sure that I am always ready to change jobs. I have a resume that I update regularly for the couple of different jobs that I would be eligible for. I know that I have skills in management, retail management, criminal justice, investments and banking, so I make sure that I have resumes available that will allow me to get a job in one of those at a moment's notice. By always having these resumes updated, I know that they are going to be the best, most well prepared resumes that I can have, without much effort required to get them into the hands


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