This is a guest post from Kevin Merritt, founder and CEO of blist, a web-based list-sharing and database application.
As a nation we have enjoyed relatively low unemployment for the last five years. At the end of 2007 the unemployment rate stood at 4.6%. By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 24.9% in 1933, during the darkest year of the Great Depression.
In October of this year the unemployment rate grew 0.4% to 6.5%, its highest rate in 14 years. Ten million Americans are now unemployed: 240,000 people lost their jobs in October, and 284,000 lost their jobs in September. That represents the biggest two-month loss of American jobs since 2001. Economists are predicting the unemployment rate will rise to 8.5% by the end of 2009, which means as many as three million more workers will be laid off in the U.S.
Because I’m a CEO who hires employees regularly, a few friends of mine who have recently been laid off have asked me for job-hunting advice. Some have asked me to review their resumes and offer suggestions. Unfortunately these folks are now in job recovery mode and aren’t able to optimally position themselves for landing on their feet.
Personally I prefer actionable advice. As such, I’m instead going to suggest ten things you can do now to be prepared for a layoff a year from now.
- Update your skills. It’s easy to become distracted by everything that’s going on today at home and at work. We neglect investing in ourselves. We can get away with that during boom times, but during tough times we need up to date, relevant skills. Start immediately. If you need training, get it — but don’t mistake training for application. Make sure you are practicing your skills professionally on a day-to-day basis.
- Reduce your household burn rate. Many people earn more than the market will bear for their services. Stock prices have fallen 50%. Home prices are falling. Salaries adjust due to market conditions, too. When finding a job is tough, don’t restrict the size of the relevant job pool because you can’t afford to work for less than you’re currently earning. We live in different times than our parents did. I personally think everyone should prepare financially for being unemployed once every five years for a period of 3 to 6 months.
- Start a blog that contains at least 50% professional material. If you don’t already have a blog, stop reading this one and go start one right this minute. It’s essential. Your blog is your living resume. It shows how you think. It shows how you write. It shows what’s important to you. While it is fine to blog about personal topics, devote half of your posts to professional content. What is that you do by trade? Mentor us through your blog. We employers love hiring mentors — they raise everybody’s performance.
- Expand your physical network. Depending on how you’re wired, networking is either a lot of fun or a lot of work. If it’s work for you, have the discipline to start now. Building a network takes time, effort and sincerity. Start attending breakfast and/or cocktail networking events. Set goals for yourself. For example: “I want to have a good conversation and exchange business cards with at least 3 people during this breakfast.”
- Update your LinkedIn profile. You are on LinkedIn, right? If not, do that right now. Your LinkedIn profile is a marketing tool. Be honest, genuine and show some humility, but also make yourself stand out in a crowd. Optimize your profile for the five-line preview that comes up when someone conducts a search.
- Expand your virtual network via LinkedIn. Future employers aren’t dumb. They’ll detect that you only decided to invest in updating your profile and expanding your network and references after you lost your job. Do it now. Like physical networking, developing your virtual network takes time too. Set goals. For example: “I want to have 100 contacts by the end of the year and 250 contacts by this time next year.”
- Start exercising. We all know that discrimination is illegal for most reasons and unethical for other reasons. But if you’ve watched 60 Minutes, you know that’s not how humans behave. With comparably qualified candidates, the attractive, fit people are usually offered the job. What are employers looking for in prospective employees? Someone who will get the job done. If you look like you are full of energy, the perception is that you will get the job done.
- Learn to use social media effectively. Learn to use Twitter and Facebook. In addition to starting your own blog, participate in some discussions online by commenting on blogs in your industry. Always link your comments back to your blog. Potential employers will Google you. Show them that you’re thoughtful and have something to say. Conversely, be careful about thinking “it’s just Twitter” before tweeting something that could embarrass you later.
- Do extracurricular work that showcases your abilities. What’s better than telling a prospective employer how good you are? Show them! If you’re a software engineer, contribute on an open source project, develop an iPhone application or develop a robust website. If you’re an online marketer, prove your good by showing me that you have a site that gets a lot of traffic. I met a man earlier this year who’s a program manager at Microsoft. He wanted to move into a new role as a marketer, but didn’t have any day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft that showed he could do the job. So he bought a domain and set up a website dedicated to Caribbean travel. Soon it was attracting lots of traffic and ranked high in organic search. It was a great way to show doubters that he was qualified.
- Avoid being laid off in the first place. Last but not least, don’t relinquish the pole position. An incumbent has an edge. It’s easier to keep a job than find one. We’re hearing about companies cutting 25% or 33% of their headcount. That means you need to be in the top 67% or 75% to avoid a pink slip. Other than an entire plant, division or office closure, the decisions about whom to keep and whom to let go are based on performance, salary and redundancy of position. Boost your performance by getting meaningful things done. Come in earlier. Stay later. Be more visible. Start sending your boss weekly status reports showing your accomplishments. Exhibit leadership.
My wife participates in a group for moms of preschoolers, and she shared a story with me earlier this week. Each table has four young moms and one “mentor” mom whose kids are now adults. One of the young moms was concerned that her sole-provider husband might lose his job and asked the mentor what she would suggest they do. Her matter-of-fact answer was, “Well, for starters, you can stop complaining when he can’t drop the kids off at school before work and be home by 6:00 for dinner.”
Nobody knows how long the current economic crisis will last or how bad it will get. But it’s already proving to be a much tougher job climate than the past few years, and the next year looks bleaker still. Start preparing today for the possibility of being laid off sometime next year. The earlier you start, the better off you’ll be.
Unfortunately layoffs are sometimes unavoidable. If you’ve been laid off, we at blist hope we can help. We’ve created a website called Land on My Feet. It’s a simple, free, one-page, opt-in site for anyone who has been laid off to enter their name and a link to their Linkedin profile.
Despite economy-wide layoffs, some companies are still hiring, and we’re promoting this site to hiring managers as a free resource to find qualified candidates. Hopefully blist can help you land on your feet.
As always, GRS does not accept paid posts. Though this article promotes Kevin’s sites, I accepted it for publication because it contains great information and links to excellent resources.
GRS is committed to helping our readers save and achieve your financial goals.Savings interest rates may be low, but that’s all the more reason to shop for the best rate.Find the highest savings interest rate from Ally Bank, Capital One 360, Everbank, and more.
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So, when is all the exercise supposed to happen, given all the extra work hours/training/practice we’re suddenly putting in? When you work 10 hours a day, commute two and need eight hours of sleep at night and do not have a servant to make your meals, iron your clothes, pick up your dry cleaning, clean up your living space it’s rather unlikely one will feel able or be able to start a grand new gym -oh, wait. This advice is aimed at men with stay-at-home slaves, sorry, wives, sorry, nagging-dumb-bitches-who-don’t-appreciate-how-hard-he-works! Right? No? Also, the blog thing … nah. Maybe in GeekWorld, but surprise, 99% of us do not work in Geekworld. Thankfully so, given the sexist snottery and rampant sense of privilege apparent in this article.
Verdict: Crap article. Next!
PS. Treat your wife that way and you’ll be staring down the barrel of a divorce in a year or two, chucklebrother. Blog THAT.
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The important thing to keep in mind when working late, and in general, is how visible your accomplishments are. If your department is busy with a big project and you work late to help finish that project, that’s great. If you have a lot of regular routines and regularly work late to finish them, that’s not that great, especially if your boss doesn’t know about how much work you’re doing.
After all, when management makes decisions, those decisions are based off of what they see. No one can make a decision using information they aren’t aware of. A lot of workers miss the step of letting their bosses know what you do. If you go the extra mile when dealing with clients, or always take time to help your coworkers, you’re making a contribution that can very easily go unnoticed.
Record your accomplishments, and keep your managers updated on them as much as possible so that they know how much you’re worth. Keeping your employers in the know is just as important as working extra hours or taking extra projects.
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This advice is geared too heavily on people who live on the internet. There are those of us who choose not to put our profiles on public view (esp facebook).
Also, poor advice re: SAHMs. Who’s to say that only stay at home moms nag and complain and that the husband doesn’t? Also, keep in mind that babies and kids aren’t asleep all day long so that Mom can do chores. A lot of the times, the kids are awake and require Mom’s 100% attention. Certain chores can be done with the child awake (cooking with the kid, making the bed), but don’t think that just because a mom is at home, that she can go about doing her chores with little interruption.
I also don’t like advice encouraging people to stay late or come in early. Workers should just be efficient and effective during the time that they ARE at work.
The other pieces of advice seem sound. But considering the amount of bad advice in this article, I’m surprised that it was posted on GRS.
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In defense of the post, I think a lot of you are misreading the comment about the SAHM. First, he was reporting a comment another SAHM said to his wife. He didn’t say anything beyond that. The level of reading in the negative into what was unsaid is beyond belief on this post. I realize it is a tremendously emotional issue for many, but much of the commentary has no real root in the main text. Giving the writer the benefit of the doubt about why he included the quote, it may have been simply to suggest that to carry out his point 10 effectively in this time may result in sacrifices (deemed by him necessary) on the homefront. It may not have reflected any commentary whatsoever on SAHM or how he viewed women’s roles.
I personally wouldn’t have included the quote as I think it did nothing to further the post. And I’m not saying that he couldn’t have meant it in a far worse way than I’m suggesting one read it. But I forgot, this is the blogosphere and so we always must assume the worst motives on the part of others and complain about how everyone can’t seem to read and understand the meaning of our own crystal clear writing.
If anything, this makes my point about your blog as a writing sample. How many of you would hire this author based on that comment and is he comfortable now with the level of polish he put into this piece to be judged by it?
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“Well, for starters, you can stop complaining when he can’t drop the kids off at school before work and be home by 6:00 for dinner.”
This is how I lost an important job years ago, because my wife saw the kid drop-off thing as a HUGE chore. Ditto for staying home while she (our daughter) was sick or had an unforeseen day off school. I did it all instead (and was willing to). I told my wife that it was impacting my work, but she felt that her job pressures trumped mine, and expressed it so strongly that to keep the family peace I just did all the child care. I lost the job (there was another excuse given, but I know that my frequent unavailability was key). Then for a several years my wife blamed me for that loss and complained when I wasn’t able to get a job as well paying.
Now that I have a better job, I’m still taking our daughter to school, bringing her home, feeding her, packing her lunch, leaving work early if there’s a medical issue and so on. My wife and I don’t even discuss it – she just assumes she can work as many hours as she needs to or visit friends after work or go shopping and I’ll be there to do child care. I’ve learned *never* to push back or discuss lest I increase her “stress” – with predictable complaints – and make it even worse for myself.
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Update your skills is the most important thing, employers know they can get their pick of the litter and they are not afraid to wait in most cases.
Tabs
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@Luke #55 – sounds like you need a new wife.
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The LinkedIn suggestion is fine with me since it’s specifically a professional networking site. But my blog and Facebook are for me and my friends only, not for anything remotely professional. It’s my way space to blow off steam and be silly. I don’t want to have to use up more of my time to create and maintain a separate, professional presence online, and I don’t agree that people NEED to do think. Yes it’s important to network and be in the loop in your profession, but you can do this just by knowing people and keeping in touch. I don’t need Twitter to keep in touch (ugh, Twitter…)
On another note, my company has already had layoffs this year so I think my whole office is very aware that more cuts are possible. Because of this I am baffled when people act noticeably annoyed when they have to come in before 9am, or they have a very negative attitude about everything. Do they WANT to have their jobs terminated? If so, they can go and that’s fine with me. I want to keep my job and therefore I act in a way that conveys this to my boss and others around me.
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i’ve been telling people for the past several years that 3-6 months e-fund is a guide and not an end all. you have to adjust given your industry, etc. given that we won’t be out of the economic problem for at least another year, that would suggest if you are vulnerable you really need to boost your e-fund target amount.
more than having an e-fund though is to reduce your expenses and debt and start living below your means. we live on around 25% of our income and have no debt. we can easily absorb if one of us loses a job.
don’t wish things away. you have to start actively planning, even if there is a remote chance of job loss. last thing you want to be is unprepared in this job environment. if people who have a remote chance of losing jobs, lose jobs, that is definitely a bad sign. prepare for it. we should all have been preparing, since everyone has been saying for at least a year that we are in a recession. i really want to buy more stock, because i think things are dirt cheap right now; however, i’m keeping more cash on hand, despite my wife’s and my job being very secure, like .00000000000000000000000000001% chance of either of us losing our jobs.
my wife just got her job about 6 months ago, so her professional portfolio is up to date. i’ve been with my job a long time, so that is something i need to do to be prepared. besides, i will transition out in a couple of years, so it is something i have to do anyways.
i agree with exercising. exercising a stress relief, it gives you more energy, it gives you more self-confidence, it keeps you in shape. self-confidence and self-motivation is a big factor not only for your current job, but in your ability to keep things positive if you do get laid off.
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i forgot to add, start squirreling away office supplies from work to home. ok, that was a joke, although some companies let you squirrel a certain amount of office supplies for home use.
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I thought the claim regarding SAHMs was defensible. While there is no doubt that being a stay-at-home parent are working hard and making sacrifices, the “fun-factor” of actual paid employment seems to be overrated on these comments. As the person who is routinely expected to work late (as a lawyer), this is my usual day:
1) Get up at a time when it is still dark and cold;
Eat supper while thinking about new ways to make myself indispensible so that if layoffs are between another person and me, it won’t hit me. Go to bed to repeat list the following day.
2) Have a breakfast of muesli and mil in a hurry while wishing I had the time for a leisurely breakfast with a soft-boiled egg. Eat while my wife is in the shower so we can alternate and leave together.
3) Put on a suit I don’t want to wear and that has to be dry-cleaned. Put on a shirt I have to iron on the weekend.
4) Share a subway with thousands of other commuters dressed in various shades of grey, none of whom are too excited to have to go to work at this hour.
5) Work 10-12 hours, primarily assisting large companies in things that involve moving money to and from other large companies, either voluntarily (transaction) or involuntarily (litigation). When dealing with individuals, most of the time deal with individuals who have between 100 and 10,000 as much money as me.
6) In between eat lunch taken from home. Usually eat the same lunch five days in a row since during the week we are too tired to cook and cook a large batch on Sunday evenings.
7) Come home when it is already dark. Share the subway with approximately half as many commuters, all of whom look somewhat beaten down.
Compare this to actually spending time with your children. All the hard work is there, but you are spending most of the effort on your own offspring. You do not have to wear a suit. You do not have to worry about being fired. You do not have office politics. You do not have to commute. You get to see daylight, and I don’t mean looking at another office tower across the street through your office window.
Everyone acknowledges that raising kids is hard, but for heaven’s sakes, most office work is tedious, repetitive, and not exactly fulfilling. That’s why it pays big bucks. As someone who is the breadwinner and knows he can’t feasibly take more than two weeks of maternity leave, I get a little annoyed by people who have the luxury of staying at home and complain that their spouse does what it takes to make that possible (for the record, my spouse is not someone who does that).
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But there are just as many women who bitch and moan and make the man’s life hard because she feels put upon and abused and asks her husband to do things to prove that she’s too busy and important to get everything done in just one day.
Chill. Breathe. Listen. Stop projecting all sorts of sinister misogyny. I read the statement as advice to be taken within the context of a healthy marriage based in partnership. I took it as a statement that a SAHM has more power than she gives herself credit for: in emotional support, in morale, in taking care of daily worries so he can focus. Try chewing him out every day and refuse to take care of his daily needs and see his work productivity go down. You don’t think the opposite is true?
SHOULD he pick up the kids from daycare? Maybe he should. But during this time of worry for the whole family (remember the context of potential layoff we were discussing?) maybe you should take one for the team. TEAM being the operative word. If you aren’t playing on the same team then what are you doing?
Don’t be a doormat. Everything isn’t all about him. But our natural tendency as humans is to make it all about US, and that’s not true either.
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It seems to me that his point about not expecting the husband (or other breadwinner)to be home by 6 for dinner is to allow him to demonstrate excellent work in order to be valuable in his job. This way, he is less likely to be laid off.
I’ve read a lof of objections here about the husband not helping at home. That is not the point. The point is he may have to spend more time at work for him to keep his job (which helps the family of one income).
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Continuation of the previous comment…
Not that I support overworking. I don’t do that myself as I try to be efficient in my use of time. I was just trying to help explain the author’s comment. I firmly believe in life/work balance.
Anyway, networking in person is the best way to find another job. Not too long ago, there was an opening at my job. I immediately contacted my former boss to see if he was interested. He was happy with his current job but asked if I was interested in another job that his friend was hiring for. That was networking in action.
-Charlotte
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Agree with H.: what a load of privileged, sexist guff. You helped make the babies, you help raise them. Your wife may not have to put on a suit or commute, but she’s not getting paid for her work and she sure as hell isn’t getting any respect for it, from what I can see.
Oh, and I love this: “Don’t get laid off in the first place.” Yeah, that’s such excellent advice, when the unemployment rate is as high as it’s been in a quarter-century.
With clueless arrogant morons like the OP at the helm of companies, I can see why the economy is in the toilet.
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@Beagle: I think you are lying…I watch Boston Legal religiously, and you lawyers have plenty of time in the day and at the end of the day you can sit on the balcony drinking scotch and smoking a cigar, not to mention flying off to fish in Nimmo Bay.
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Most of this advice is definitely geared to a select audience. There are some reasonable suggestions for all though, like staying fit and reducing expenses. However, this post and the media still seem to be promoting fear to me, as in the comment about the wife being more understanding. Living out of fear does not make for good decisions or good outcomes. I really don’t think that working mega hours and sacrificing all for your job (like not being willing to go to an appt or run an errand at lunch time) will ensure you keep your job. Often those employees are seen as not too smart by their employers. Why do you have to work 80 hours when Jim or Susie gets quality work done in 40 hours? You need to work hard, but smart. Definitely leadership is important, but sending accomplishments to your boss can bug them to death. You don’t want to be THAT employee. Use common sense and do your best. Always network (not just when you think something might happen to your job), always keep your resume up to date, always take opportunities to learn new skills (most jobs have excellent training online themselves), etc.
I think we do have serious times, but still, here’s some interesting food for thought … http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/09/looking-for-a-r.html
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Glad to see the sceptical comments about the blogging suggestion. I thought the same. Depending on how you go about blogging about your professional life, you could be:
(a) fired for betraying the loyalty you owe to your current employer as an implied term of your contract.
(b) If employed in the public sector, you could be fired because you violate a statute, such as the Official Secrets Act (which exists in various guises in nearly every country) or a regulation about publishing while in public service. In the UK, an employee of the National Health Service was fired a couple of years ago for their blog. If memory serves correctly, the same happened to a UK professional fire fighter.
(c) You might be off-base about your industry without knowing it.
(d) You might be seen as indiscreet and generally, a loose cannon.
(e) You rule yourself out for being hired by firms you may have been critical about in your blog, even though your criticism may have been misconceived.
Stupid advice, really. I would go as far as saying that in many professions, you should think long and hard before even having a *personal* blog in which you can be identified.
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One thing I never see in these articles about saving 3-6 months of pay is that you need to factor in COBRA payments. You need health insurance, even when you’re unemployed. COBRA is usually the cheapest you can get but it can add hundreds of dollars to the amount you’re thinking of saving.
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Wow, you completely outlined why I hated my six-figure career in San Francisco and left it to work for a tiny college in a North Country forest at 1/2 the pay…with a better quality of life than I’ve had in my entire life. And saving more money than when I was running 24/7 to service the needs of corporate neurotics who thought that the planet couldn’t continue to spin on its axis without them.
When life becomes a giant exercise in constantly trying not to let someone else turn you into economic cannon fodder, you know what it is to be a wage slave.
Hope you all enjoy your hamster wheels, scurrying yourselves into breakdowns and being pitted against each other in a steel cage match of Corporate Boggle.
Suckers!
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What message might it send to your *current* employer if your activity level on LinkedIn increases sharply when the going gets tough at work? Does that project a message of “competent employee” or “flight risk”? Will your loyalty to the company be called into question if your online presence suggests that you’re looking for new opportunities?
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@Tim:
Dang it – if that’s the case, why didn’t I think of moving to Boston?
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I don’t know how useful facebook and the like are, but I HAVE heard of people NOT getting jobs because of what is listed on their personal sites. This is especially true for recent graduates who have a lot of good time/rock’n'roll stuff on their sites. Another tip I got when I graduated was to make sure my email address was one that potential employers could take seriously.
Ultimately: with this advice YMMV. You need to have an idea of what an employer is looking for in your field. If you’re applying for a job stocking shelves you’re boss probably wants to know that you will show up and on time. If you are applying for an office assistant job they want to know you will present a professional appearance. If you are applying for a call center job your boss wants someone who communicates effectively and sounds friendly. The criteria will be different for lawyers, gas station attendants, engineers, bus drivers, nurses, and so forth.
Just like the 34 ideas for Xmas gifts these lists are pick and choose-food for thought. Ultimately there is no question that it’s a good idea to think about layoffs before they hit you, to keep your skills current, to know the way the wind blows and to be ready for change so you’re not blindsided.
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I can’t stress enough how much easier it is to look for a job when you already have one, so I would emphasize the benefits of performing well enough to keep your job, even if you’re searching elsewhere (unlikely in this climate) — when I was in my most recent job search, even though it was taking every last ounce of energy that i pretty much already didn’t have outside of my normal job — It took me over a year to find my new position. I can’t even imagine how much reserves I would have gone through (financially and emotionally) had I not been employed at the time!
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Great advice in the post, but I’m going to nitpick one reference that stood out to me. “At the end of 2007 the unemployment rate stood at 4.6%. By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 24.9% in 1933″
The Government calculates unemployment differently now than it did years ago. This has the effect of making the employment discrepancy seem larger than it is. The Government no longer counts people who don’t have a job but aren’t actively seeking one as unemployed as it used to. To compare apples to apples we need to use the unemployment measure called U-6 which counts all unemployed. It is currently 12.5%. See http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/12/prepare-for-depression-level.html for more.
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@Shirley: what do you mean? quoting my hero (yes I know he’s not real, “he’s a composite like the New York Magazine does”) Gordo: “fear is good, fear is right, fear works; fear clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit; fear in all of its forms — fear for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind. And fear — you mark my words — will not only save the Big 3, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”
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“Well, for starters, you can stop complaining when he can’t drop the kids off at school before work and be home by 6:00 for dinner.”
My problem with this isn’t the “drop the kids off at school part” but the “be home by 6:00 for dinner” part. It’s a hard economy, your husband is working extra hard at work, you can work extra-hard at home. Think of the single moms who have to do both — it can be done. Like one of the commenters said, it’s like the Christmas Gifts post: it’s an idea of how you can help. Your husband doesn’t have to start a blog, either.
What bothers me is the hint in that comment that Dad should work late hours and Mom should shut her mouth about it. I don’t think that’s necessarily what was meant by it, but it could be read that way.
If the job is forcing him to work late hours, I don’t care how the economy is, the healthiest thing for your children is to look for a new job that respects his work/life balance. If he’s working late hours without pressure from the job, that’s something worth “complaining” about (I’d prefer a friendly discussion).
Your children aren’t going to be young forever — you’ll never get that time with them back, and more importantly, they are never going to get back that time with their dad. They’ll remember how much he was there when they’re older.
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Laura – work/life balance is a myth propagated by the select few government employees, usually ones with defined benefit pension plans that are the most aggressively managed entited out there. The largest proposed corporate takeover ever in Canada was spearheaded by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, and it is teachers especially that love to lecture me about work-life-balance.
The reality, especially in this economy is that when anybody other than those government workers talks of work/life balance, it invariably means “I leave the office at 6:30 to have dinner with my family and then work from home for a couple of ours after the kids go to bed.” All fine if you can handle the sleep deprivation (some can), but hard if you actually need the sleep.
The reality is that not everybody can work for government, and all private enterprise is aggressive about the amount of time one is expected to put in. I am aware of someone at a private company only making $40,000 CDN a year gross who was bi***ed out in the annual evaluation for only working 8 hours a day, as the company had recently instituted a policy that everybody who was salaried was to put in 45 hours a week (and these are entry-level white-collar positions). The vast majority of jobs out there are like that, and if a young family with one one earner insists on that person being home by 6:00 sharp and thinks it doesn’t jeopardize the person’s job that way, then that family is stuck in cloud-cuckoo-land.
On the bright side, you end up realizing that the frugal life is the way to go and that the person who needs the least money is the most free. If I hadn’t realized after a while that a six-figure career is a Faustian bargain that is simply not sustainable in the long run, I would never have been able to save half my net income on a regular basis.
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1. Hire Yourself. Even if you are employed by someone else consider yourself a self-contained business. The employer sees you as replaceable. View them the same way.
2. If you lose your main client, you find others. You don’t beg for their business. Choose to work for them, not the other way around. Build up your client base.
3. Still do all the 1-10 suggested in this blog, but not for fear of being laid off.
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# 78 was a good post, and my advice goes along with that and my post # 79.
Being free can be pretty cheap. Choosing to be underemployed, unemployed, or intermittently self-employed can really cut down on expenses and increase quality of life.
The corporate career track takes a lot of resources.
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How about proof read your own article?
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Thanks for the great read. I’m definitely going to take away your suggestion about blogging. I currently blog, but it’s not dedicated to my career. I’m considering now starting a new blog or attempting to incorporate my professional work into my blog.
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I wrote about this topic on my infopreneur blog a few days ago in a piece called “How The Bush Unemployment Insurance Extension helps Infopreneurs”. In it I discussed how the sad reality is that the workplace has changed and many people who are laid off now or in the near future may not be able to get employed again, or at the same level they were at before. They’ll have to make their own job.
The best thing to do before you are laid off is to start a flexible side business–and to me, the best one is infopreneuring, because you leverage your own, unique knowledge to make money. This way, if you are laid off, you’ll already have one foot in the entrepreneurial door, and perhaps you can even tell your employer goodbye before they tell you.
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I owe 75% of my current income to my blog. It’s helped me win contracts over the competition, attract clients who did a search for translation services and brought me very useful contacts via my readers. The key, I think, is to try and offer relevant, quality content that is useful to readers; that way, it reflects your personal expertise and skills and enhances your reputation.
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I agree with PP who question the work/life balance aspect of this post. My husband and I both work full-time and have commutes. He works early in the day, leaving at 4:30 to pick up the kids by 6. I work late in the day and normally work until 7 or 8 most nights so I can drop the kids off. If you equate “working late” with commitment to a job, you’re only seeing a small part of the picture. We’re both dedicated to our jobs and work nights and weekends at home as needed. We have long commutes in part because we can’t sell our house and move without taking a loss. And with the economy as it is, we’re both hanging tight, working hard, and trying to be good parents at the same time. After all, our kids are only small for a short time, and we have college savings accounts to fund.
Being a good employee and a good parent aren’t mutually exclusive propositions. Having a life (or wanting one) isn’t a crime. And keeping a job at all costs has a high cost of its own, no matter how crappy the economy.
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@Shara #62, You are dead on about the SAHP comment, stated perfectly. I have been a SAHM most of our kids’ lives. It is a hard job and when times were good my husband was wonderful about picking kids up and doing a lot around the house. He never questioned me if I asked him to pick the kids up from school or if I wanted him to take a couple hours off for a school performance in the middle of the day. But his company is currently in trouble and he has the skills to help I WANT him to put in the extra hours and encourage him to leave home early and ask him to just call before leaving the office so I don’t have dinner ready too early. I also went back to work part time to pull some of the financial stress off of him, I chose the part time route so that I could still do most of the “home chores” while he weathers this storm, but have also worked like crazy at my job so that I am noticed and could quickly and easily step into a full time position if he were to lose his job due to the company finally going under. We, like Shara stated, have chosen to work as a team, supporting each other every step of the way. I am proud to be able to shoulder some of his burden since when I was at home and up all night with little ones he never hesitated to get up too or come home early to let me take a hard earned nap. As a family we will accomplish little if we worry about life being 50/50 sometimes in is 80/20 but loving relationships slide both ways. I think that was excellent advice and if we want the opportunity to have one parent be at home with our children we have to work together.
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LinkedIn.com is a great tool that recruiters, hiring managers and HR uses. I know – because I am a recruiter, and have used Linkin.com for a few years now.
Also – I suggest making sure people can find your resumes outside of big boards like Monster.com, etc..because there are a lot of companies that cannot afford Monster and other big board fees. Of course – make sure you have your resume on a niche board as well if you have speacilized skills that are hard to find. There are some companies that have such a reduced budget that they will may post jobs to big boards, but cannot afford the expensive resume search fees. However, they will pay to search resumes on niche sites if they are very specific to what they are looking for.
Ie. – electrical and computer engineers may want to make sure they can be found on IEEE.org, etc.
Make sure also that if you are working with a recruiter that the recruiter has a lot of experience in YOUR field. Sure, it helps to work with more than one. However, companies won’t pay recruiter fees in a market like this UNLESS they have really hard positions to fill.
Also, post on Craigslist.com. That is free for companies to search, and make sure you look there. Although it isn’t free in every market any longer for companies to post, the costs range from only $25 to $100 or so (last I checked) so is still cheap for them.
Here are two search engines that search only job postings:
Simplyhired.com and Indeed.com. Make sure you have these in your favorites (neither will pull up Craigslist.com postings though, so you have to go to the site itself).
Just my two cents – I didn’t have time to read all the comments, so I apologize if these things have already been mentioned.
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Oh other thing – networking is King – employers love to hire people that someone in their company already knows and trusts. I have gotten a couple of jobs that way myself.
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Another place you can add yourself is Layoff Talent. It just launched and is for people who have been laid off in the tech industry.
You add a simple profile then employers looking for “talent” can find you.
http://layofftalent.com/
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Was I the only surprised that the mentor didn’t advise the young SAHM to start updating her resume and bolster her skills to make herself more employable, should the need arise?
They’re both parents and they’re both adults. No reason they can’t both raise the children AND seek paid employment.
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@#89 Froogirl – For a lot of people, the cost of day care can exceed what is brought home. Childcare inst free.
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Hm…. I also am involved with a group of moms of preschoolers — and in fact I am one of them myself. I also am someone with a long career under my belt, and have seen the vagaries of boom times as well as busts. Yet, I cannot agree with the advice to drop the dad from the family picture. Too much of high-tech management relies on that model already, and it puts dual-career families at risk. Instead, there are recession-friendly management models which can help people be home for dinner as well as keep a good job rating. An idea actively pursued by companies like CISCO is job-sharing. Moms (but dads could do this as well) agree to do a project together and share the time they work, as well as the perks. Or someone agrees to reduced hours on site. Or flex time, where the employee is on-site for an established period of time, but may use evenings to tie up the loose ends from home, after bedtime. Those models enable parents to be home for dinner in those formative years of a child which define the “seven years from home”. Yet those employees are also empowered to serve their company without incurring costs for the down time. It’s better to build such models into the system rather than work with haggard, frustrated dads (or moms — I’ve been in that position!) forced to detach themselves from the loved ones in order to keep a job. Yes, we have to power through the recession, but let’s try to do so without damaging a generation. I’m not talking about entitlements, just about managing a workforce that accommodates the reality of family live. Without that, how can one make the case that the brightest kids should join this career path? Nobody wants to be stuck in their career just because they got married and have family responsibilities! Nobody wants to marry an incompatible partner just because someone needs to be home with the kids. Unfortunately, the tech industry has some growing up to do. That mom at the PreK table could have herself been a C.S. PhD who sacrificed her career because the workforce failed to accommodate their dual-careers family. I found the comment a bit insulting.
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A sample daycare break-even calculation:
Salary: $100,000
Nanny: $30,000 (for full time at $15/ hour in a large metropolitan tech center)
Taxes: 1/3 of the income (thanks, marriage penalty!).
Result? mom working a 6-figure salary takes home about the same amount as the nanny. Why not do daycare? because then you also factor in drop off/ pick up times, which for a full time tech worker these days becomes prohibitive. As the kids grow into the preK age, the equation starts to change, but this is what working moms are having to figure out when they go back to work. Yes, there are variations, but it’s still a sobering set of numbers to look at. Enhance these numbers and you get a recession-proof family.
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Very nice article, should be helpful for people in need. We should all be prepared for the worse in this economy.
I have drafted a comprehensive list of 20 things to do when you are on the verge of being laid off. Do check out the link if interested. I will be glad if you get benefitted by the list.
http://onecentatatime.com/20-things-to-do-before-you-lose-your-job/
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