**If you are on the go, you can listen to this via on my audio blog, Halfreformed: The Spoken Word Series. Links:
Anchor.fm: https://anchor.fm/paola-fajardo9
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ZilRR5gtKLhEW2o1UMSCJ
Revival & Trauma
…And just like that, we are ending 2021 as if nothing happened (well, it’s true nothing much happened). In all honesty, 2020 was a very difficult year, work-wise. It was the year when I seriously doubted myself and stopped believing in myself. It made me question everything I accomplished. So I promised myself to make 2021 a year of revival and hope. I was blessed to be allowed to start over and rejoin my former employer. In hindsight, I do seem to have a lucky strike, as my sister put it. It reaffirms my belief that despite how dire the situation is, things eventually fall into place, not how I want it but as it should be.
A couple of months into my role, I started to feel the same anxiety and doom that I used to feel in my previous job. I was catastrophizing when nothing was happening. So much for a revival, I said. I was manifesting symptoms of a “career trauma”. Yes, there is such a thing. According to Entrepreneur.com, Career trauma is an “injury” that occurs when an individual experiences a traumatic event in the workplace. Now, looking at the grand scheme of things, I am grateful that work-life is relatively well. Truly, life moves in circles. What happened in the past two years was a lesson, not a life sentence. It is a new season and it should be cherished.
The Great Resignation (I was wrong)
Ok, I have to take back what I said in my previous blog post. Based on my experience speaking with candidates, Yes, a lot of resignations and transitions are ongoing. That’s what happens when you give people the opportunity to reflect on their lives, they become empowered to make changes to better their lives 🙂 As such, the job market is buoyant with requirements. However, as The Great Michael Scott puts it, “How the turn tables”. Kidding aside, the market indeed has turned around. I would say that candidates have the upper hand at the moment. It is not just because there are a lot of opportunities available, but candidates have more power in deciding what they want to pursue and how they want to pursue it. For employers, it is a “Game of Time” for them. Some are smart to know that things have changed. So not only are they upping their speed in the application process but are putting up competitive offers for candidates to choose from. Meanwhile, some employers are still lagging, perhaps still reeling from the effects of 2020 in their companies, or still stuck in their old-school ways.
The Reckoning
In addition to The Great Resignation, employers can’t just threaten employees if they resign as staff are prepared to walk away from jobs with toxic work environments and have the option to be their own boss too. A lot of employers still think of their top-down and abusive approach will work. But with the unraveling of toxic workplaces, it is a time of reckoning for organizations. I suppose they could use some time to reflect as well and really think about how they can actually be partners with their employees.
It will be interesting to see if the shift to the candidate market will continue in 2022, and how employers will respond to this evolving phenomenon. As for me, I will surely be using the last days of the year to really think about the crossroads I am about to head into. Do you have your own career realizations from 2021? How are you changing your career path in 2022 if you are planning to? Let me know.
Career Trauma Reference: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/385839
Halfreformed 