How quickly the world changes. One moment you are beating off the recruitment consultants with an unpleasantly coated stick. The next, you are wondering if you’ll still have a job at the end of the contract.

Coming up to Christmas it was all skills shortages, not enough bidders to go round and rocketing salaries. Now the housebuilders are laying off people left, right and centre, order books are thinning out and all hopes of that pay rise discussion with the boss have gone out of the window.

The question is: how do you make sure you’re not the next one to get the boot? There are two schools of thought here. The first is the ‘keep-your-head-down-and-hope-for-the-best’ technique. The second is the ‘shameless-networking-and-brown-nosing’ strategy.

Personally, I favour the latter. So next time I’m in head office and see a certain contracts manager approaching, I’ll try not to remember the time I spent working under him as a trainee and his nit-picking requirements for how tea should be brewed. Instead I’ll put on a cheery smile and think of something positive to say about his shirt/weight/facial hair and ask about his kids.

There is always the chance that this tactic could fail, however. He could quite easily be thinking: ‘I remember him. What a cocky so-and-so he used to be. I’m surprised he’s still with the company…’

It’s a bit of a lottery. Good look with whatever route you choose.

Source

Construction Manager