It sometimes takes a crisis for the ingenuity and creativity of the human mind to really ‘kick start’, and what a crisis we now face! The US has lost 2.6 million jobs in the past four months alone (Business Report, March 9, 2009). The lag effect of the US and European financial ‘free fall’ is starting to make itself felt in developing countries worldwide.

Current Generation Y graduates and first jobbers - those born between the late 1970s and 2000 - are currently badly affected by limited job availability and staff reductions.

In times of recession, the phrase 'last in first out', seems to ring true for many organisations. Generation Y have never experienced a recession, so the current economic downturn may come as a shock.

I was asked to carry out some coaching in a public sector organisation. I was asked to work with Kofi, an amazing character who was bright, intelligent and likeable. The issue was that his boss, Graham, felt that he took too long to complete his tasks. When the tasks were completed they were often incomplete and incorrect, this would then mean that someone else who have to spend more time on the task in order to bring the output up to an appropriate level of quality. Graham asked me to work with Kofi on a performance coaching contract to improve the quality and timeliness of his outputs.

Doing the groundwork is the key to beating the job searching blues. In fact, according to SA’s top people organisation, Kelly, the start of your job searching should include a thorough audit of your CV and research into what jobs are on offer that match your skills and experience.

Most HR practitioners would agree that staff career development and career management is of significant importance for organisations today.  In many organisations HR practitioners have implemented activities to address fundamental career development issues through performance management processes, training and development opportunities and succession planning.

However, the challenge is still to create, maintain and develop a reasonable ‘job fit’ between an individual and the organisation.  A good employee-job fit is fundamental to levels of job satisfaction and work productivity.