Posted in : New Career
Getting a Second Chance in Your Career
By David Bellm
Dec 31, 2007 - 1:03:38 PM

It’s surprisingly easy to fall from grace and have your name turn into mud. And once that happens, it’s hard to get anywhere in most professions. But what if you’re not ready to leave the game? Follow these tips for climbing back in.

Being thrown off the horse hurts. But if you’re really going all out in your career, chances are pretty good that at some point you’ll cross some line, step on some toes, or choose a course that puts you on shaky ethical territory. When that happens, there are often consequences to pay – consequences that could make your name poison and effectively banish you from your profession.

But what if you’re not ready to leave yet? Is it over forever?  Not necessarily. Although a reputation is one of the hardest things to rebuild, almost anybody can have a second chance, if they make the right moves. Follow these steps for finding your way back into the fold.

Assess what happened
Look at what went wrong, and then assess what you have to do to rectify the faults that led you to that place. And be honest – you’re judgmental colleagues will be brutally so. This will become the foundation of your rebuilding plan.

Find your strengths
Your confidence has surely taken a beating from all of this. So it’s a good time to write down your strengths and successes, so you can review them on a regular basis. At the same time, these pluses will become selling points in your comeback campaign.

Sit out a few rounds
People’s memories are strong, but not necessarily persistent. Let them forget you and the things you did. Find a way to get out of the profession for a while until things cool down. Or, at the very least, find a very quiet, private corner of the field to hide in. How long you need to lay low depends on the nature of the sin. If it involved time in a white collar prison, you’ll probably want to be out of the glaring eye of your colleagues for eight, maybe ten years or so. If it was a more minor transgression, such as botching up an important account, 18 to 24 months should be enough for things to cool off.

Start your campaign
After an appropriate amount of time has passed, start your campaign back into the field. Do this by first finding out what the general opinion of you is among your colleagues. Buy some lunches and humbly find out what your personal brand stands for at this point. Then sell those folks on how you’ve changed and what’s still great about you.

Return with hat in hand
When you start you re-entry campaign, you’ll want to proceed with an air of humility. For one thing, you’re asking for help. Lots of it. And that process never favors the arrogant or unrepentant. But more importantly, much of the reason your colleagues may have cheered your fall was that they wanted to see you brought down a notch. By being humble, you remove the incentive for them to kick dust in your face again.

Hold your head up 
While humility is key, don’t let the whispers and the buzz get you down. They’re usually products of petty, bored, insecure whiners. Hold your head up, do great work, and keep on plugging.

Consider a new venue
Finally, if you aren’t having any success climbing your way back into your chosen profession, maybe it’s time to consider taking the game to a new arena. Are you in a position to move to another city? Much of the insider buzz that permeates professions is localized. Only those who commit spectacular, CEO-sized failures get national press. By taking it to another part of the country, you may be able to sidestep most obstacles altogether.