Lost Your Job...Now What? Revisited

Lost Your Job~~Now What?

You've just been thrown out into the wilderness without a map. The most difficult thing is knowing where to begin. With months of research and trial and error behind us, we have experience in forging the trail. Let us be your compass.

The following is a list of websites with useful information for the Job Search/Interview process, itself.

Just follow the links to the appropriate sites.

From the unemployment fairy

(from my other blog)

Get Ready to Get Out There

What Is The Longest Period Of Time That You Have Been Unemployed?

Now that you know what jobs match your skills and interests, it’s time to get out into the job market and make things happen. Our toolkit will help you prepare with proven tips that can help you perfect your resume, sharpen your interviewing skills and prepare for salary negotiations: Link

What You Should Never Put in an Introductory Email

It's never too early to make a bad impression.

A cover letter or introductory email is often the first thing a potential employer sees when reviewing a job applicant. It's the first opportunity to impress recruiters and hiring managers and, therefore, the first opportunity to disappoint them. Everything from copy mistakes to inappropriate jokes in a cover letter could derail an application. Link

Top 5 Tips for Creating Impressive Video Resumes 

In today’s highly competitive job market, creating the right video resume to accompany your traditional CV can make you stand out from the crowd. The wrong one, though, can make you a laughing stock. Link

Interviews

A collection of resources to help you ace interviews. Includes tips for successfully navigating job interviews, sample interview questions and answers, plus interview practice games that provide immediate feedback online. Link

Thank You Note Example - Follow Up With Information 

Thank you note example to use when you want to follow-up with the hiring manager and provide additional information about your candidacy that you wish you had mentioned at the interview. Link

Hope Floats

Today, I am going to edit through some of the old posts that have spelling and other punctuation issues. And then, there are those other things that seem right when I write them, but turn into a incomprehensible mess when I go back and read them later.


A couple helpful blog sites for those looking for employment help:

Help the 99ers

As a result of the continuing crisis in America's job market, some 1.5 million men and women are still actively seeking employment, even after exhausting the maximum of up to 99 weeks of state and Federal unemployment insurance benefits. At least 5.5 million Americans may have joined the ranks of the 99ers to date. These men and women, your family, friends and neighbors, need access to the same lifeline that the rest of the nation's unemployed have.

Unemployed but Organized for the 21st Century

Staying Positive.

A topic on the #99erAid Twitterchat a couple of weeks ago was ways to stay positive.  A positive mental attitude is essential for 99ers to survive. H.R. 589 would go a long way to helping with positive thoughts. A jobs creation bill would also be helpful.  Both items need to pass Congress, so 99ers must advocate for their passage. Political action alone can't maintain positivity, so long term unemployed need to focus on daily/weekly items to stay positive. In the course of preparing for my life beyond H.R. 589 and 99erhood, I have found two sites that will help maintain a daily positive outlook

A thistle grows by the Castle Wall.

Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up.
And it will, too... 

More Lobser Dreams

Today, I got video proof that somewhere in the world, 

I still have #STUFF. 

A locker full of Christmas decorations, baby books and the random nick knacks that define our lives. All piled in the trashed out stacks of chaos by people who could care less about the memories those boxes contain.


Just days ago, we were, finally, planning our trip back across the country to gather up our belonging and bring them our to our #NewHome. 


Now, with our vacation planned in amongst the likely probability on #Joblessness by the New Year, the question hangs heavy. Do we move the remainder of our belongs out here? Then, we can sit in quiet desperation with familiar ghosts and goblins, snowmen and Santa statues.


As weeks and months pass, the likelihood of this locker being one of the first things we stop paying for is high.


Perhaps the thought that we can still bring our boxes out, means I have not quite given up. With 12 million people in this area, surely there are other jobs to be had.


In just over four weeks, we'll know for sure what happens to our lives.


That gives us another seven months to find a new amazing #CaliforniaJob. Almost as much time as it took to find this one. Surely not an #ImpossibleTask?

I still have the dream of Christmases with my tree in all it sparkling glory, set up again in my life time. Or smaller dreams of birthdays where my youngest girls get presents. Four years is way too long since they have celebrated with actual gifts.

The fact that they understand no gifts will come, makes me saddest of all. They live with the bits and piece we have left our our middle class life. Reminders that we once did alright, with the hope that we may one day be back there again.

Yes, these are more #LobsterDreams!

So, for now, I will plan to return to Minnesota and pack up my things to move them to my new home. I don't quite yet have to acknowledge I may need that moving money to live on, if fears become reality and reality stretches us to that point where we break.