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... 

Our SNAP Challenge

The SNAP Challenge encourages participants to experience what life is like for millions of low-income Americans living on the average daily allowance of only $4! 
The SNAP Challenge

 Taking the SNAP Challenge:

Eat on $4/day for a week, a month or longer if you so choose.  Check out our sample menus to help you get started...

Experience hunger for yourself. Learn about the daily struggles faced by our hungry neighbors!

Engage others by sharing your experience. Create a blog, post to Facebook, & encourage friends to participate.

Not that long ago, our family 'participated' in the SNAP challenge. Not as willing volunteers, but rather, out of financial necessity.  As the job search stretched from weeks to months, and the dollars dropped from comfortable toward nonexistent, food became a priority.

Long full shelves emptied. Canned foods, that had sat unopened for years, were cooked up. Rice became an evening mainstay...the real, long grain, slow cooking rice. Not the delightful minute rice I had used forever. 

Our daughter, who lived near, by over bags of groceries, as did our our son at home. The younger girls just ate what was there without complaint. A surprise box of powered milk created a day of kitchen fun as we created several different homemade hot cocoas from odds and ends in the baking supplies. 

But, it can be dreary and depressing, spending day after day after day in a home waiting for some GOOD news. So we would occasionally eat out. I know! Completely shocking, appalling and unacceptable. Ask any of the so called Christians who want the poor to bury their heads in the sand, or be flogged in public. 

Being poor is a worse crime in this country than murder...just ask George Zimmerman. Or is it being black is the worse crime? I get confused.

Anyway, we learned that a family of four could eat at ARBIES, off of their Dollar Menu for $6 plus tax. Everyone would get our own sandwich. Again, with the frivolous. We would share a package of fries and a drink. Thank goodness for free refills!

Best of all, we we out in the real world, at least pretending that everything was alright. 

So, I have thought about doing the SNAP Challenge in the past couple of months, but I am not ready to go back there...yet. I didn't need to do it before, during or after our own personal challenge. Being a decent person is always the right thing to do.

And, why don't we drug test people before we allow them do donate money to uber crazy political groups that are screwing with our planet, our health, our bodies and our civil liberties?

Why I don't believe in Drug Tests for Food Stamps

 I absolutely, 100% understand the sentiment behind the argument, if you have to take a drug test to get a job why shouldn’t you have to take a drug test for ‘FREE money’! I do, but...

1.       1.    A job is contract between you and your employer…a promise or expectation of certain types of behavior.  

2.     2.     There is no contract between food stamp recipients and government programs.  Government does not control people’s morals. If it did, it should also be able to withhold food stamps for illicit sex. Perhaps, porn. Oh, it was only R-rated, then it’s okay.  Wait you spent $5.00 on a movie ticket. Wasteful. A life outside of pain, suffering and looking for a job…we’re cutting you off.

3.      3.    When do we start testing for alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate?

Now, these are Government controlled Drug Tests, right? What could possible go wrong there?

1.     1.      Let’s say Mom does drugs. Bad mom, shame on you. No food for you, or son, or daughter, or little baby.

2.       2.    And what happens if there is a false positive? Couldn’t happen? When is the last time you took cold medicine? Meth-head!

3.      3.     Please, please, please tell me you are for smaller Government. Then, tell me you want another Government Agency to keep food out of the mouths of babies.

4.       That is okay, though, because they already want you to vote to keep people form have the right to VOTE in AMERICA! Photo ID! Trust me, if it kept the GOP voters from voting, it would NOT be under consideration.  It is to keep Students, Poor and the elderly away from the polls. Typical Democratic voters. 

   

      Voter Fraud is the FRAUD. Doesn’t exist. But, let’s make people (yes, people, not scum and villainy) take the little spare money they have and spend it on IDs and NOT food.

What happened to compassion? This is America.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Have we come so far from our humble beginnings, that now, the poor can lie starving in the streets while we watch 350 channels on our flat screen TVs untouched.  $97 a month is the cost for food stamps…how much is your cable bill? What is the value of one child’s life?

**~~*~~**

One last ‘random’ fact. As I read people complain about the $100 a month insurance program, it strikes me how selfish and judgmental people are.  Do you know how much uninsured people are expected to pay a month without insurance? $1500. A MONTH. I can’t afford that, can you?


$100 is affordable for most families, yet I keep reading Christian posts (Yes, it always seems to be the MOST Christian among us) stating how the Poor shouldn't have to pay. Judge people for NOT being self sufficient, then keep self sufficiency out of their reach. So why don't YOU well to do people pay the $1500 to support the insurance companies and let the rest of us get affordable insurance. Sound fair to you?

They worry for the poor , but won't give a hand up.

I love when people request help with something and get the response, “I’ll pray for you.”

That is just great. The person in trouble is still stuck on the side of the road and so called ‘praying person’ is warm and snug in his/her home.

Imagine if God had PRAYED for mankind instead of sending his SON down to Save us. Or if JESUS had only prayed for the Sick, the Poor and Outcasts, instead of helping them.  

I honestly don’t need to spend hours reading the bible trying to interpret what God wants from ME. I simplify. 

 I AM WHO I AM.  Exodus 3:14

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:

 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Matthew 22:37-39

Enough said.

Living through Unemployment

Forgive the topsy turvy dates of the first few posts. We are editing an old Blog and reinventing it for this adventure.

Converting site...check back SOON. This site will be filled with everything you need to help you through the most incredibly difficult time of your life.

I know this because we are living it with you. Learn how to survive from, day to day, with us.

Lost Your Job~~Now What?

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

Between A Rock and A Hard Place

Having searched the internet for any sign of hope in amongst the despair about unemployment and its conqequenses, I have come to realize that what is needed is a place for families to turn to for information, help and perhaps, even a bit of humor. Life is not over...its just on hold. I hope. This blog will attempt to offer anything and everything about the life of the unemployed Ameerican. Mainly, that life does go on.

To be continued...

Weekly Time Sheets

Begin the job search by

Number ONE

Organize your time~~plan out your week.

Sample List
Monday
7:00-7:30 Breakfast
7:30-8:00 Morning Jog
8:00-9:00 Work on Resume
9:00-10:00 Internet Job Search
10:00-11:00 Practice Interviews Out loud
11:00-11:30 Fix Kitchen Sink
11:30-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Talk to Bank about Mortgage Options
2:00-3:00 Sort Through Email-Respond
3:00-3:30 Pick up Kids from School
3:30-4:00 Robert Half Consulting
4:00-5:00 Study Lesson 5.2 of Java script
5:00 Dinnertime
Tuesday
7:00-7:30 Breakfast
7:30-8:00 Morning Jog
8:00-9:00 Work on Cover Letter
9:00-10:00 Internet Job Search
10:00-11:00 Practice Interviews Out loud
11:00-11:30 Mow front yard
11:30-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Work on new budget options
2:00-3:00 Sort Through Email-Respond
3:00-3:30 Pick up Kids from School
3:30-4:00 Send Thank you to Robert Half Consulting
4:00-5:00 Study Lesson 5.3 of Java script
5:00 Dinnertime
Wednesday...
My Excel Templates

Making life easier, one Excel Template at a time!