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#JobSearch : Lost Your Job?  First Steps First. Great Ideas to Get Through the Unemployment Period.

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Nothing is more worrisome than being out of work and dreading the bills coming in the mail that you can’t afford to pay.  Scarier yet is not having funds for job shopping (gas money or interview clothing).  Here are some ideas to help you get through the unemployment period and make time without a job work to your advantage.

Your full-time job while unemployed is applying online for jobs. Once you lose your job, you should immediately research your state’s unemployment benefits options.  In some states, a two-week waiting period must be reached before application; in other states, you may be eligible on the first day of unemployment. You must file for the benefits. In most states, you may do so online via an Internet-based application. The state will require forms completed pertaining to the circumstances leading to the job loss. Be truthful. If you were fired, state the honest reason. Not all states deny unemployment benefits for being fired unless the termination was for extreme reasons (e.g., embezzlement, equipment destruction, theft, avoidable OSHA-related safety incidents, or vandalism).

 

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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Did you know?  First Sun Consulting, LLc (FSC) is celebrating over 30 years in the delivery of corporate & individual outplacement services & programs to over 1200 of our corporate clients in the U.S., Canada, UK, & Mexico!  

We here at FSC want to thank each of corporate partners in the opportunity in serving & moving each of their transitioning employee(s) rapidly toward employment !

 

Article continued …

Regardless of the waiting period, the employment commission in each state is one of the best places to search for a new job.  Many companies post job openings to comply with the EEOC mandate for the 3-5-day public posting of positions, and they can do so for free. The state also supplies job listings within an easy commute to your city and surrounding areas.

Apply directly to public job openings – some companies will allow resume uploads into their Automatic Tracking Systems (ATS), even if there are currently no job openings (this is called ‘resume farming’  by recruiters). Alternatively, apply online by uploading your resume to proprietary resume databases, e.g., Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, Indeed, or USAJobs.gov (resume loading for the job seeker).

You don’t want a blank space on your resume where you were unemployed if you can avoid it. Recruiters are not fond of seeing extended periods of unemployment (the UNNA syndrome – Unemployed Need Not Apply). However, after the 2009 housing crash and the COVID pandemic, they are more used to seeing these phenomena of long periods of unemployment. The good news is that there are two rich opportunities to add content to your resume, allow you to meet new people, and network for new employment opportunities.

First, offer your time or assistance to non-profit organizations or obtain training to enrich your job skills. Many small non-profit organizations (NPSs) are desperate for grant writers, volunteers, mentors, and specialists. There is a shortage in these skills for many small NPOs who can’t afford to pay salaries for these job skills – your local paper may run lists of NPOs needing assistance.

Second, if you can’t do the education or training and can’t offer assistance as a volunteer, the next best activity is to go into business for yourself as a consultant. Shop the market for companies needing your skill set as a 1099 consultant (a local city business license may be less than $50).  You never know when your skills sets may turn into a more realistic method to replace that lost salary.  Recruiters will note you didn’t let the dust settle after a job loss and view you as a more viable candidate.

While you are unemployed, get the training (or education) you didn’t have time to take while you were working, and add industry or trade certifications to the achievements on your resume. Take classes to advance your education beyond the courses or degree you last achieved.  There may be inexpensive adult education classes in your city that provide insight into a fresh new topic for you. Computer skills are one of the hottest training needs in any industry. If you gain insight into how software or a process works, it will move you ahead of the job’s competition.

As you achieve the training, education, or volunteer work, add it to your resume as the most recent ‘employment’ activity.  The longer you are unemployed, the more obvious the non-productive activity and the less viable a candidate you become to recruiters.  Filling that gap with volunteer activities, education or training, and/or part-time consulting work demonstrates you are still a viable and highly qualified candidate.

FSC Career Blog Author:  Dawn Boyer, Ph.D., is an associate of First Sun Consulting, and the owner of D. Boyer Consulting – providing resume writing, editing, and publishing consulting services. Reach her at: Dawn.Boyer@DBoyerConsulting.com or http://dboyerconsulting.com.  

Bio: Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D., manages and operates a consulting firm in Norfolk, Richmond, Colonial Beach (Dahlgren), and Gloucester, VA.  Her background is 24+ years in the Human Resources field, of which 12+ years are within the Federal & Defense Contracting industry.  She is the author of 940+ books on business, human resources research, career search practice, women’s studies, genealogy lineages, and adult coloring books.  Her books are listed on Amazon.com under her author’s page for Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D.

 

FSC Career Blog | September 19, 2022

 

#Leadership : How To Build A #Community Around Your Business (And Why You Should)…You already Onboard #NewHires . Why Not Do the Same with Customers, Users, Fans, and other Stakeholders?

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Whether you know it or not, your business has a community. It could be a formal membership–maybe you offer a subscription-based product, for instance–or just a collection of loyal fans or customers that you should be treating like a community, if you want to stand apart from your competitors.

How you treat new community members within the first 30 to 60 days will determine whether or not you keep them in the fold. And for every growing business, customer retention is the holy grail: According to Bain researchers, increasing customer retention by just 5% can boost profits by as much as 25%–95%. For this reason, I geek out on the onboarding experience we offer our clients. Here are some favorite strategies every business, large or small, should consider trying out.

Related: The Hard-To-Nail Formula That Makes Building A Startup Easier

CONNECT WITH MEMBERS’ “PYRAMIDS OF INFLUENCE”

Most brands don’t think beyond collecting phone numbers and email addresses. At The Community Company, which helps brands build communities around their products and services, we find we’re able to boost engagement by at least 25% just by requesting contact information, not just for our immediate clients, but also for the people who impact how they spend their time or money. In other words, to turn customers into community members–and to grow the community overall–ask not just, “Who are you?” but also, “Who do you know?”

For example, a personal assistant can help you get an entrepreneur’s attention for a task that needs completing or a benefit you’re offering. We’ve also found that community members’ public relations and marketing people are often eager to take advantage of our services. It’s not about nagging your existing customers to do word-of-mouth marketing on your behalf–it’s about asking for an opportunity to leverage relationships that already exist. To cultivate them further, consider sending these influencers handwritten notes to make them feel valued and connected to you.

OFFER INSTANT OPPORTUNITIES

After a member joins your community, its your job to keep them engaged. Don’t bombard them with emails. Opt for few strategically spaced-out messages on how to navigate your platform or take advantage of special features. And if you have additional products or services, now is the time to offer them.

At Young Entrepreneur Council, for example, we immediately direct new members to a web page featuring deals and discounts we’ve negotiated, knowing that they’re most excited about reaping the benefits of membership after they first join. But you need to think of this as an onboarding process–a means of helping people who’ve already opted into your services figure out how to get the most out of them. We’re careful to avoid the hard sell (or, worse, the upsell), which is always counterproductive.

Related:Your Startup’s MVP Isn’t Working, But Here’s What Might

ASK OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS . . .

The one question our Member Concierge team is prohibited from asking members is, “How can I help you?” It’s well-intentioned but rarely gets a response with any meaningful data. People often feel too vulnerable to ask for help, or simply don’t know all the ways you might be able to lend a hand. If you’re dealing with a group of ambitious executives, better questions (depending on what kinds of products you offer, of course) might be, “What are you working on right now that you’re really excited about?” or, “What skills do you have that may be useful to your fellow community members?”

These open-ended questions will give your members a chance to build social capital in your group. The responses will also give you meaningful insights into your new members, particularly if you learn to read between the lines. Connecting the dots is a fundamental element of any community-building effort.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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. . . AND SPECIFIC ONES

After all, the more information your members share with you, the better you’ll be able to serve them. So don’t hesitate to get into particulars (the worst that can happen is a community member declines to respond).

If you have a community of business owners, you might ask them to share revenue (or at least a range), or ask if they have venture funding. Even a less confidential metric, such as number of employees, will allow you to estimate the size of their company. For, say, a community of rock climbers, you may ask how advanced their climbing skills are, what their most challenging climbs have been, or where they plan to climb next.

All this can help you arrange offline interactions among your most passionate fans. You should also ask your new members where they frequently travel. If you’ve got members who bounce between new York and Los Angeles quite a bit, wouldn’t it be to everyone’s advantage to connect those members with one another?

Collecting this kind of information–always with consent from your members, of course–allows you to make connections between people in your group, know what additional services you can offer them, and how to communicate with them as an ongoing member of your community. You can’t do most of that just by tweaking a sales funnel.

Ryan Paugh is the COO of The Community Company, an organization that builds community-driven programs for media companies and global brands. He is also the coauthor of Superconnector: Stop Networking and Start Building Business Relationships That Matter.

 

FastCompany.com | May 3, 2018 | Ryan Paugh