You’ve received a workforce adjustment notice. What’s next?

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With thousands of workforce adjustment notices being sent to federal public servants this month, many government employees may be considering career changes.

Career coach and author Michelle Schafer tells Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa at Work with Patricia Boal getting notices can lead to immediate panic, but it’s important to take a step back.

• 10,000 notices issued to federal workers this week, including Global Affairs

“Our tendency is to go into panic mode when we receive one of those notices and our mind starts to spin. ‘What does this mean for me? What’s going to happen?’” she said.

“You find out that your job may be impacted, and that word ‘may’ is really important because certainly there are questions and very few answers for a lot of people. But, even just to take a pause, kind of the opposite of panic. Recognize that this is very stressful, this is a very uncertain time.”

Schafer said the first step is to separate fact from fiction.

“So, the fact is your job may be impacted. You don’t know how and you don’t know when. The rest is just a story we create in our minds,” she said.

Five questions to ask

When you’re thinking about a job or career change, particularly during a time of upheaval, there are five questions to ask yourself.

“The first one is what work energizes you? If you’re really honest with yourself, what’s the work that really lights you up, over the course of your whole career?” she said.

“The flip of that is also something to think about. What is the kind of work that, even though you’re very good at it or you’re known for it, it drains you? You obviously don’t want to be doing draining work in the next stage of your career.”

Next, think about your transferrable skills. Public servants have many skills that can be applied outside the public sector, as well as elsewhere within it, Schafer said.

“Things like client service, stakeholder engagement, writing ministerial briefs because that’s an example of stellar communication, building relationships, leading projects, any of those things. We need to take stock of those things before we think of maybe how we can apply them in a different capacity,” she said.

The fourth question is thinking about where to go.

“What organization or department do you want to be part of? What are the values, the mandate, the leaders?” Schafer said.

Finally, what are the things that are so important to you that you might walk away if they weren’t there?

“This last one is non-negotiable,” she said.

Once you’ve taken stock of these questions, you can start making moves, Schafer said.

“If you do want to stay within the Government of Canada, this is a good time to reach out to your network, start looking at the job boards. People who have received these notices now have access to job matching services or programs, so you can start to explore what might still be possible still within the government,” she said.

“If you are looking outside, this is a good opportunity, believe it or not, to use AI to identify some career options. A great way to do that quickly is to take your resume and your reflections from those five questions, put them into ChatGPT or other AI, remove any identifiers that give away who you are, and ask it what kind of career options might be possible for you, based on your skills, your experience, and your preferences.”

Once you know a little bit more about where you’d like to go, Schafer said then would be a good time to reach out to the network to see where you can get connected and how people in your circle can help.

• Latest information on federal public service, including notices, job cuts, return to office rules and more

How to present yourself during an interview

If you’ve landed an interview but are unsure of how to present your situation to your prospective employer, Schafer suggests telling your story in three stages.

“The first one is a brief capture of the facts,” Schafer said. “I mean, you do need to say, ‘I’ve received a work force adjustment.’ You are waiting to find out what is happening to your job to see if it will be cut and at this time, you are exploring other opportunities.”

Next, Schafer suggests focusing on what appealed to you about your previous work.

“Talk about what you loved about your job; talk about a result or two that you’ve been able to achieve on your job that you’re particularly proud of,” Schafer said.

From there, connect those past career achievements to the job you’re currently interviewing for. This, Schafer says, will shift the conversation away from “tell us why you left” to “tell us why we should hire you.”

“You have an opportunity when talking about your lead story, to bring your value and your impact to that answer,” Schafer said.

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