profitable

No Job

You may have been laid off.  Maybe you have quit an intolerable position.  The important thing to do is to start working on a plan to get you back in some sort of position where you can get an income stream going.

First, if you have been recently laid off, take an inventory of what you have coming to you.  Are you still getting some severance?  Can you bridge your medical benefits over?  Did you make sure that your retirement account, your 401K or pension plan is secure until you can take some time to decide what to do with it?

Make sure that they are not cashing out your 401K.  If they are, make sure that you roll it over into an IRA – you will have generally up to 60 day to do it.  If you don’t it will be considered an early disbursement and you will be penalized and taxed. 

If you have been laid off you will have to endure an exit interview.  I wouldn’t waste time saying what was wrong with the company, etc.  You will need to use them as a reference.  It doesn’t pay to burn any bridges. 

By the way, I wouldn’t worry about any bad references.  A lot of people are getting laid off and it is sadly pretty commonplace.  Usually by law, a reference check will be that you worked for the company, were employed there for however many years and that is that.  For personal references pick people you can trust – you don’t want any nasty surprises when a prospective employer asks “Would you work with this person again?”
You also will be in a state of shock.  Different people deal with stress differently but there will be some shock whether you are aware of it or not.  It may hit you right away, it may not.  However you react is normal.

If you start throwing things around the house and breaking your TV, that is not normal.  Go for a walk or better yet run and get some of that anger out of your system.

If you need to contact a psychologist, counselor or there is one offered as part of your severance package – take the opportunity.  It will help you get back on your feet faster.

Take an inventory of your financial assets and liabilities.  If you have a financial savings that isn’t in a retirement account, more power to you!  You are ahead of most people.  That means you have some time and leeway in trying to plan your next step.

If you can, file for your unemployment as soon as possible.  The reason I say that is that it takes time for unemployment to process your application (they get a lot of them) and it may be several weeks till you get your first check.  It doesn’t hurt to get the ball rolling.

For the interim, if you have a family, plan on making some cut backs (if you can).  Are there things you can start eliminating that you can always do later on?

For example, if you buy a lot of fast food, consider going to eat out only once or twice a week and load up on frozen food or fresh fruit and vegetables.  I know that fast food sometimes seems cheaper and easier but in the long run it will only make you fatter and cost you money.

Buy coffee or tea to make at home instead of going to Starbucks.  Start drinking generic sodas instead of Coke or Pepsi.  Better yet cut out junk food altogether and get on a lean and mean diet for you and your family if you can.

Get your attitude focused on getting a new job.  Personally, I don’t like waiting to “get it together”.  If I know the direction I want to go, in this case, getting a new job, I start researching the internet, calling friends, calling relatives, doing whatever I can to get back employed.  I have a family to feed.  You may too!

If you have the luxury of time and money, you may want to use this as an opportunity to change careers.  Make sure you understand though that the starting salary of your new career may be substantially lower than what you were use to making.

Make sure that it you have talked it over with your spouse, significant other or loved ones.    If it involves a significant lifestyle change for the whole family, they need to be in on it.

Speaking of lifestyle changes, do you have any services that you don’t need while you are laid off?  Maybe you need to cancel cable or satellite for a few weeks or months to save some money.  Better to pay the rent or mortgage than to be watching the basketball game on satellite in the alley off of the street.

You want to try and get employed as soon as possible.  Set some realistic time lines and if worse comes to worse, take some job – any job – that will start bringing some income in.
I am not saying you should get a minimum wage job if it will end up exhausting you and you will still be losing money each month.  I am saying that you need to be practical.

If you have been laid off for awhile – get your edge back!  You need to get back to work and the longer you are sitting around the harder it is getting to get back to work.
Right?

So, you want to keep busy and avoid being lazy.

I would spend 8-10 hours a day working on resumes, calling companies, going to job fairs.  Whatever it would take.

If you don’t have web access, get it.  Look for free web access (though I wouldn’t send any personal information from a free site personally) at your local library, internet hot zones or neighbor’s house (one you can trust).  There are tons of ways to keep busy and you will need to write great cover letters and great resumes to get noticed in the crowd.  I suggest you keep calling friends,  head hunters, in fact, call stay in contact with whoever you think can help you land a job.

Start a website or a blog about what you are doing or what you want to do.  Become an authority in your field and you will be pleasantly surprised.

If you hustle, your downtime between jobs will be small and you will be employed in no time.

Google job postings.  As of the writing of this book, there are sites like dice, monster, and craigslist that have postings every day in all sorts of jobs.

Take advantage of this and dive in.

It will also keep you busy and sharp.

I keep thinking of when my wife Sharren and I would take Jacob (my son) on auditions for acting.  You need to be ready and be prepared for a lot of rejection.  Get a thick skin.

By the way keep your suit or dress pressed and ready.  In case you get a call that you need to be at an interview right away – you can go in.

If you are over 50 (heck if you are over 35) and have gray hair, feel free to color it.  Wear clothing that shows that you are the person ready to go to work and hit the ground running.  This is a good idea regardless of whether you are a male or a female.

Show that you are a professional.  Get to the interview early so they will see that you are responsible.

You will get the job.  If not this one, the next one!  Let us now move out of survival mode briefly into more practical money making ideas.

Questions or Comments?  Please post here!

Kim Greenblatt

Tags: Business, cash out, income stream, laid off, no job, pension, profitable

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 8:32 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.