How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan for Your Career

In Tech, we are big fans of Disaster Recovery Planning. It gives you a sense of control and a playbook to execute in response to a massive incident you had no way of predicting.

In real life, I have a few DR Plans that help me shape my response to things I simply cannot control.

Do you have a clear picture of the kinds of things in your life that would make you go into disaster recovery mode? Do you have a series of strategies that you can implement when disaster strikes?

The most present disaster for a lot of people right now is loss of income due to loss of work. Below is my disaster recovery plan when I too feared losing my job.

Make A Plan

I vividly remember the day I hung up my first ‘job search’ Kanban board. I had come home in tears filled with stress and fear that I would finally lose my job soon. I wasn’t jobless yet, but the anxiety that filled me pushed me to make a plan. I could no longer control what was going on at work, but I could control my reaction — not the tear-bursting, the plan-making!

Whatever your preferred style of planning is, challenge yourself to create a plan. Add milestones, add a timeline, and decide what your desired outcome will be. How will you measure progress? A Kanban board was a simple way of keeping a clear picture of my desired outcome, and the steps I needed to get there.

Keep And Feed Your Tool Inventory

It’s important to update both your resume and your cover letter. One of the first things I did was make multiple versions of my resume and cover letter, depending on the job prospects and the skills I want to highlight. I now make a habit of going back and revising them regularly.

I also had to invest time in social media. If for no other reason, to at least understand the expectations and benefits of having a social media presence. I now dedicate a lot more time to my LinkedIn profile and to growing my network, I am deliberate about my Twitter feed and Facebook connections. if you’re unsure of where to begin, there are of plenty of tools to help you along the way, check out this article by Alison Doyle.

I also continue to explore roles outside of my own. Are you in Management? Look up an Analysts resource group. In engineering? Check out a few Product Owner job descriptions. Understand how your experience can overlap with skillsets typically associated with other roles in your industry.

The point is: have a full understanding of your assets and continue to build on them, I now have a running list of all the ways in which my skills are desirable to companies.

Identify Your DR Team

I also learned that in order to leverage my network effectively, I needed to have a clear understanding of how the talents of the people that supported me, could pull me through. Try asking yourself the following questions:

• Who could I ask to spend time helping me update my resume?
• Who is best positioned to help me catch up on current industry trends?
• Who can I count on to help me find confidence when I am feeling overwhelmed?

Begin to identify these resources and start reaching out.

Restore Functionality

I remember this one phone interview where I felt I did so poorly, I wanted to fake an emergency and hang up after the first 15 minutes.

Instead I stayed on, and when the hiring manager recited the usual: ‘do you have any questions for me?’ I decided it couldn’t get much worse and asked one the questions I had prepared in advance. The hiring manager answered my question thoughtfully and I decided to keep asking questions and to offer some of my own insights.

By the time we ended the call, I felt much less embarrassed. While I knew I wouldn’t get the job, at least I now felt I capable of recovering from an awkward phone screening. To my disbelief, the following day I got a call asking for a follow up interview, I ultimately got the job.

Since then I always try to remember that we face rough patches but they do not define us. I try to remember to take a deep breath and to put my best foot forward in each and every interview.

Inspect & Adapt

In Tech, in order to make sure a team is prepared for a disaster, entire days are blocked out to simulate a disaster and test out their DR strategies. They need to understand points of failure, and what needs improvement. The people involved need to know the plan in and out. The way I translate that into the Job DR, is by running a drill version of my plan, this includes the upkeep of my resume and cover letter and tending to my social media presence. It also includes agreeing to a handful of job interviews throughout the year.

Even when happily employed, it’s important to know how effective your resume is in attracting worthwhile employers, and to know how interview processes are changing and how they are still the same. Sharpening your level of comfort with all stages of the hiring process can be key in helping you stay upbeat and focused if and when you find yourself actually going through the process.

I am also very mindful of my network and connections; these are wonderful people I know I can count on, and I do my best to let them know they can count on me too.

Strategic Next Actions

Remember, the best time to uncover weaknesses in your Disaster Recovery plan is before a disaster — not after. When disaster strikes there’s sense of sense of powerless that comes with it. Making a plan can help with that feeling.

• Decide on an action plan of your choice and create one.
• Take stock and care of your tools and your network.
• Inspect and adapt-there’s no such thing as a missed opportunity, only unidentified chances, be relentless about improving your strategies.

If you need any help, we are here for you! Follow us at https://www.linkedin.com/company/thriveintech/