5 Unemployment Tips

I'm writing this post in the middle of the afternoon, from the couch, while watching Downton Abbey on Netflix. That's because I'm currently unemployed. This is the fourth layoff of my career, but I'm lucky to be able to say it's been 7 years since I've been on the dole. Since I have the time, I figured I'd share some tips for dealing with unemployment.

1. File for unemployment immediately. There isn't much about this process that's changed in the time that I've been away from it. I was told it would take 3-4 weeks to start receiving payments, which is the same as it was 7 years ago. I once filed for unemployment by phone from a hotel room while on vacation just to get the process started. In Massachusetts, you have to open a claim either in person or on the phone. The one thing I did notice is that it's harder to get the process started this time around, probably because of the higher unemployment rate (which is getting lower, thankfully). I had to call several days in a row before I got an actual person who could open my claim. However, there have been a few welcome upgrades to the department of unemployment. After your claim is opened, you can fie for your weekly benefits, sign up for direct deposit and keep your log of employment activities online. Hooray for progress!

2. References, Recommendations, Resumes. Did you know that the more recommendations you have on your LinkedIn profile, the higher you appear in search results when employers search for people with your skills? I had no idea until a friend told me. So I quickly reached out to former coworkers and bosses to beef up my profile. LinkedIn even makes it easy by giving you a form letter to send the request. I also uploaded my resume and made it public on Monster.com, Dice.com and Indeed.com. So while I'm searching around for jobs, hopefully people are also searching for me. I got some annoying and irrelevant phone calls about jobs, but for the most part, I received emails. Create a folder in your inbox and the influx of emails is totally manageable.

3. Don't get too much off schedule. I'm not a morning person, so I'm really tempted to use this time to sleep late and be more of a night owl. But since most job interviews are going to take place during business hours, I need to be awake and available. I'm not hauling myself out of bed at 6am, but I am making sure that I'm alert and up by 9am every day. I do get to sleep in a little. And I am still in my pajamas today. But I also have a pen, notebook and fully charged cell phone within reach for when opportunities come my way. My resume is also sitting open on my laptop in case I need to refer to it.

4. Don't spend all day job hunting. Give yourself a time limit each day for trolling job boards and crafting cover letters. Don't spend every day all day on this stuff, or you will go nuts. Trust me on this one. I'm flexible when setting up times for in person or phone interviews. But for applications and searching the internet, I give myself until noon or 1pm each day, and then that's it. I make sure I give myself time to do other things with my day, like yoga or taking a walk. There are only so many jobs out there at any given time; spending more or less of your day looking for them is not going to change that. Once you apply for a job, there's nothing you can do but wait to hear back. So try to cut yourself some slack. And that brings me to the last tip:

5. Get out of the damn house. Staying in the house 24/7 eventually gets on the nerves of pretty much everybody. And hey, when you go to the supermarket at 11am on a Tuesday, you can have almost the whole place to yourself. If you have no job you're definitely shopping on a budget. I'm a throw-it-in-the-carriage-and-get-the-hell-out kind of shopper, but I'm usually in the store after work when I'm starving or on the weekends when I'd rather be doing something else. If you go when the store is empty, you might actually take the time to compare prices on items and save yourself a few cents here and there. Every bit counts, right? I also like to go meet friends I don't get to see often and grab a quick lunch near their office. It doesn't have to be pricey, you can eat an appetizer and order a glass of water. Maybe your employed friend will even treat. Meet a stay at home friend at a park for a brown bag lunch. Or head to the library, grab something to read and sit outside for a bit.

Being unemployed is not a vacation. I don't think of it as "me" time or an opportunity to relax. Anybody who sees it that way has never been unexpectedly laid off with their mortgage and car payment looming. I just try to make the best of it and focus on finding my next job. What are your strategies for coping with unemployment? I'm all ears.

Geek in Heels: It's the Economy, Ladies

I'm featured again today on the Geek in Heels blog. Please stop by and check out my post, It's the Economy, Ladies.

Get Back to Work

There have been two great articles this month that say the same thing and after reading them I realized I couldn't agree more. There is a way to end persistent unemployment right now but corporate America needs to step up and get on it.

This excellent Wall Street Journal article even comes with handy info graphics, but the Fast Company one is worth reading as well. Here's the situation. Many employers have specialized jobs they can't fill. Many people are out of work because the industries that employed them are fading away. It seems obvious, doesn't it? Train unemployed people to do some of these jobs. Or train up existing employees for the specialized jobs and give the lower level job that person leaves behind to someone that needs it. Simple, right?

The problem is that too many employers have narrow focus. As the WSJ article states, to get a job, most companies make it a requirement that you have already done that job. Honestly, what is the point? I really am not motivated to leave one job and go to the exact same job somewhere else. There's no career growth that way, and it's not very motivating to think that you won't get a chance to learn anything new when changing jobs.

Many companies are also using their current employees to cover way too much work load. Now that it's been almost a year since I left my last job, I can say that one of my reasons was being burned out. I was trying to do a job that should have been split up between at least two people. When it became clear there was no intention of easing my workload, the only thing I could do was quit.

I understand that in a crappy economy, companies have to be really careful about bringing in the right people. I can't think of a better, happier employee than one who badly needs a job and receives training so they can perform that job. I've been unemployed. If someone made me that offer in return for signing a year contract or something similar, I would have done it in heartbeat. The program at Chrysler that starts union works at lower wages but promises a chance to learn on the job and advance has produced loyal, hard working employees. What more can a company ask for?

It's clear major changes are needed to get this country back on track. One of those things should be better job training programs in high schools, colleges, vocational schools and federal programs. That's going to take time. American companies are in the best position to get training programs in place and put people back to work right now. Corporate big wigs probably don't read this blog. But they should be reading the Wall Street Journal. It's about time everyone starts getting back to work.

Geek in Heels: Rise of the Geek Girl

I'm really excited to have been asked back as a guest blogger at Geek in Heels, one of my favorite blogs. Please check out my post over there: Rise of the Geek Girl. Thanks!

What's So Funny Bout Peace, Love and Work-Life Balance?

I see many articles about women's search for the ever elusive work-life balance. So this take, Are Men Expected to Have Work-Life Balance?, written by a guy, is pretty refreshing. The prevailing sentiment is that women desperately seek it, but men are just meh about it. They don't need to worry about it, because their wives are busy doing it for them. What I wonder is, why don't more men think about it? This article indicates that maybe they do.

Now that both women and men continue to work outside the home after they have kids, I'm surprised this hasn't come up more often. Women are no longer expected to marry and then stay home to keep the house, or work until they have kids and then stay home. So there is definitely a lot of logistics that need to be figured out in a household with two working parents. Men are no longer expected to contribute only by working to support their family. There's so much involved in parenting these days. It seems to me that all parents should be thinking about how to have work-life balance.

Don't Dad's want to occasionally chaperone field trips (ok, no one really likes that) and go to baseball and ballet practices? Men are more involved than those Dads of old who expected to be met at the door with their pipe and slippers and not to be bothered by any kids until they've had time to relax. So why are women the only ones worried about whether their career really allows them to spend enough time with the kids? Moms are still seen as the primary parent, even if they work. We're starting to see a big shift in that, so it seems only right that a Dad who mulls over being a stay at home parent for financial or other reasons would have the same concerns about work vs. home life.

Guys, we want to know that you care about this stuff too. If you are taking on more of the household chores, why not strive for that work-life balance while you're at it? Most of the guys I know say they don't want to be the same kind of distant Dad their fathers and grandfathers were. I think each generation of Moms are try to redefine what "having it all" means. It's about time that men start doing it too.

Pass Me a Bottle, Mrs. Jones

Celebrating our summer vacation in CA 

Since there's been a lot of talk about women (or lack thereof) in the tech industry here and elsewhere lately, I was happy to see an article about women in another industry entirely - beer making.

Double X recently featured this great piece on female brewmasters. Long the domain of Paul Bunyan-esque manly men (at least in more recent times) women are stepping into the brewery. It makes sense to me that this is happening at a time when it seems more women are into beer in general.

I never liked beer. My Dad is a Bud and Coors Light guy. My first beer experience was taking a sip here and there when I would fetch him cold ones from the fridge. I was not impressed. So I assumed I didn't liked beer. What I found out much later is that I didn't like that type of beer. Once I had sampled some other options like Sam Adams and Guinness, I began to see that not all beer tasted the same. There was such a thing as good beer after all. Imagine that.

When I was a kid I only ever saw one woman drink a beer. My Grandma was a good old fashioned teetotaler (which she pronounced tea-toe-tailor). All the other women in my family were drinking wine or nothing at all. At a family cookout, my aunt walked past them all to the cooler where the guys were clustered and cracked open a beer. Everyone except my uncle seemed a little surprised that she even wanted one. It just wasn't something we saw very often.

I think many women used to think the same way, that beer was a guys drink. Women seemed to prefer mixed drinks or wine. You were more likely to see a woman on a beer label than a woman with a beer in her hand. And while brands like Budweiser still use bikini models to cater to men, I've noticed that the beers I tend to drink have marketing (and labels) that are much more gender neutral. Coincidence?

Women have already infiltrated a lot of other traditionally male spaces. Now after a long day of doing all that hard work, we're coming for the beer.

Is There Such a Thing as the Wrong Kind of Startup?

This Forbes article from last month ponders if women are starting the wrong kind of startups. It all started with a tweet from tech journalist Jolie O'Dell which was much discussed by both men and women in tech. In her 140 characters O'Dell said she's embarrassed that women only seem to create startups about babies, fashion and shopping. I'm paraphrasing, but I think I said it a bit nicer than she did.

Is this just another example of that thing women do where we get bitchy and tear each other down? If there's a dearth of women founding tech companies, why complain about the type of companies they decided to start? It's also worth noting that there are successful companies run by men in these same spaces, Etsy and Zappos being two of the biggest.

I have to wonder if it's more of a perception problem. If there were a shopping equivalent of Facebook founded by women, would it be taken as seriously as, well, Facebook? No one doubts the influence of amazon.com. They started as a shopping site and have expanded into much more. If the site was just based in fashion instead of a wide array of items, maybe it wouldn't be as revered as it is. It's worth considering that there is a bit of a prejudice against endeavors that aren't serious enough or "techie" enough. I feel the same way about blogger vs. mommy blogger (which seems to always be said with disdain). But that's a whole different post.

If I was going to start my own company, I would focus on something I know. Take a look at all the fashion blogs, TV shows and magazines out in the world. Who is reading/watching all those? Mostly women. So it's not a surprise that many women would choose something like fashion to get their feet wet in the tech startup world. There's nothing saying they can't go on to found the next Google after they get their silly little mommy venture off the ground and sell it for a million dollars. I hope they are laughing all the way to the bank.