You Can Recover From A Dotcom Bust

Not all dotcoms make it, let alone make it big. So, if you're working for a start-up, the likelihood is that at some point you'll be faced with career recovery after a company fails. How you approach the rebound will determine your long-term trajectory, whether your future is with start-ups, Fortune 1000s or freelance. Before you rewrite your résumé postings and sign up for networking meetings, you need to do a complete postmortem review of your experience. If you don't, you'll not only repeat any mistakes you made, you won't satisfy recruiters and hiring managers who want to see that you learn and transform from tough experiences.

Did the company fail, or did you fail? You have to figure out your part in the failure up front and be honest with yourself. It's OK to fail. Except for a few people coached by mentors, no one knows what to look for in joining a start-up for the first time. The key is to pinpoint where you went wrong and how that affected the company's outcome. Did you hire the wrong people? Misunderstand the assignment? Put customers second? Commit to unrealistic time frames? Maintain a doomed strategy to avoid admitting error? Or did you simply get outexecuted on a good idea?

If the company failed because of top-management errors, you need to know why. Did the founder pick the wrong partners? Fail to empower staff? Overpromise and undercapitalize? What were the telltale signs along the way, and how did you miss them? Good recruiters don't mind seeing a failure in a candidate's background, because what the person does next demonstrates his or her true character. If you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get right back at it and go find a winner-either because you improved your skills or were smarter about what company you chose to join-that shows you're made of the right stuff. Flame out twice in a row and you'll need an achievement-filled past or an extraordinary story to get past prospective employers' doubts.

If you decide to freelance, make sure your consulting assignments are for successful companies. You'll still be judged by what you do and how successful the company is as a result of your efforts. If predictability and balance are key issues, then consider joining a big company. But know that you may have to step back a grade-say, from IT director to project manager-to get into an "A" organization. The same holds true for start-ups: "A" players hire people who have succeeded with other top-level companies. Above all, quickly catch yourself playing the blame game-or recruiters will. Smart employers know blamers set themselves up for failure, while people destined for success naturally own up to more responsibility for failures than they deserve. Winners also get it right the next time.