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In our line of work, we use statistics every day to suit our needs; we use them to show how great our new membership recruitment program is doing, to showcase the growth of our industry, to track the progress of a competing meeting. We very rarely feel the need to relate to the numbers on a personal level, except as it relates to our chosen industry. Like most people, I watched the news and I heard the statistics about the downturn in the economy, and then a strange thing happened: in the summer of 2009, I became part of those faceless numbers. I lost my job due to the economy.

I got down, and then I got angry. Once the anger was over, I updated my résumé and I evaluated my options as a young association professional. I pulled out every business card I had collected over my career and I started to network. At no point in my career have I ever sent more emails or résumés, nor done more research and examined every possible nonprofit career website.

The biggest breakthrough came when I realized that it was okay to examine opportunities outside of my current geographic area. Once I felt free to look at positions up and down the Eastern seaboard, I found more and more companies willing to set up interviews. According the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for December 2010 was 9.4 percent; that's a lot of competition. To me, what that meant back in 2009, and still means today, is that you have got to do something to set yourself apart; whether that's relocate for the job, earn your certification, speak a foreign language, or have a skill set that nobody else can claim.

I'd like to clarify that I don't want to seem to have taken relocation lightly; I realize that it is not something that everyone can just up and do. I was fortunate to have a supportive spouse and a great network of family of friends to encourage me. In the end, I sat down and looked over the volume of opportunities where I was versus where we could be, and there was no contest between the two. I would really encourage others who have faced a similar situation to respond with the decisions they made, and how they came to the choices that they did and why. Please share; you never know how you might help someone else!

Stacy Bromley Cheetham, MPA, CAE, is operations manager at American Urogynecologic Society in Washington, DC.