If your experience in transitioning from employer to employee has been disappointing, you’re not alone. Take heart; as a former business owner, you have a vast number of jobs waiting for you if you have the right strategies to implement while job hunting.
1. Polish Your Resume
Your resume is an essential tool you have while switching from entrepreneur to employee. It can be challenging to know what to add to it when you decide to go back to work after months or years of self-employment. It’s important to remember that you don’t have anything to be ashamed of in having a business that did not work out.
While writing your cover letter, focus more on what drives you to seek a job opportunity instead of focusing on what discouraged you from self-employment. Being self-employed, you have developed skills and work ethics that other potential employees may not have. All you need to know is how to transmit these skills effectively on your resume.
Here is a guideline on how to effectively add your skills into your resume:
- Soft skills – Since you are experienced in running your own business, you are bound to have acquired numerous soft skills like communication, time management, creativity, determination, effective customer service, and devising a business model, among many others.
- Hard skills – Working for yourself often entails taking on multiple roles and learning new skills to keep your business running. These skills can easily give you access to great job opportunities. These hard skills include selling your products and services, recruiting new employees, pitching, and many more. All of these are highly beneficial and valuable to any hiring company.
2. Prepare Yourself for Collaboration
As a business owner, you are used to having complete control over decision-making. As you transition into employment, you will have to learn to cope with this loss of control. You will most likely have a supervisor in charge of your schedules, task allocations, and deadlines. It can be challenging to let someone dictate the decisions and tasks you do in a company since you are used to having executive power.
However, if you focus more on completing the tasks given to you daily, it will be much easier to make this transition. This transition will require you to strengthen your interpersonal skills, which will help you interact effectively with your colleagues and teams.
It is not uncommon for former business owners to get fired from their jobs due to a lack of cooperation with current employees.
3. Review Policies and Practices
Different organizations have different policies and practices. When you finally land that job, you must review all of the company’s internal policies. You should also confirm the company’s legal procedures. For example, it is recommended that you brush up on workers’ compensation laws.
Workers’ compensation laws are a system of rules stipulated by every state that covers the expenses of employees who undergo any harm during the execution of any job-related task. As an employee, you can recover lost wages, medical expenses, and disability payments.
It is essential to review these policies as terms for workers’ compensation laws vary from state to state.
4. Embrace change
Change can either be complex or smooth, depending on your perception. As you transition from being a business owner into the workforce, you must embrace the changes that will come with it. Since you were used to running the show, resisting change will most likely lead to future unemployment due to the shift in roles. You are more likely to succeed in your job task and even earn promotions if you focus on these two types of change:
- Operational change – This is the change in power structure and chain of command. In the workforce, you will have a supervisor who will allocate your tasks and who you will be expected to answer. This chain of command is put in place to ensure the smooth running of company operations.
- Relationship change – This is the change in how you interact with colleagues and employees. As a business owner, you focused more on the industrial relationship you had with your employees. In the workforce, this relationship is different because you will be interacting directly with your coworkers in accomplishing daily tasks. You will have to drop your bossy nature when addressing your coworkers for smooth correlations.
5. Reflect on Your Accomplishments
One of the most challenging steps in transitioning from a business owner into the workforce is the interview. As a business owner, you were used to conducting interviews with prospective employees and not the other way around. Before stepping into an interview, take some time to reflect on your accomplishments and make them relevant to the industry of your desired position. For example, if you are applying to be a bookkeeper, you should focus on relevant skills like record keeping as a business owner.
When interviewing, always relate your accomplishments to the company and the job you are hoping to land.
Get Ready for Change
Returning to the workforce after being a business owner is a big career move. You must acknowledge this fact as you proceed with the transition. Just like when you started your business, as you enter into the workforce, take pride in the small wins and work towards making them grow toward your overall goal of getting your desired role.