Newly Unemployed – Engaging in employment that is productive as well as meaningful is significant for a person’s health and his ability to take part completely in everyday life. Work helps in providing support to the people for achieving their potential and also gives structure to their day to day routines. It also helps in meeting the person’s basic financial needs which enables complete participation.
When an unplanned or unexpected loss of job or work is experienced by a person, it affects the general well-being along with the physical and emotional health of not only the worker but his entire family. A cascading effect results from the loss of work which disrupts the daily routines, weakens the social connections, causes financial instability and also erases the work identity of a person which diminishes his self-worth.
A time of change and uncertainty starts after becoming unemployed. This affects men as well as women of all the socio-economic backgrounds, cultures and races. There is more stress, anxiety as well as worrying regarding the ability of managing the existing difficulties and also of coping with the unknown aspects in future. However, certain tips can be used by the newly unemployed.
8 Effective Tips For Newly Unemployed
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Tip 1 – Tell everyone that you know that you are unemployed now
You not be feeling shameful in telling people that you are in search of a job. The more the number of people who come to know about it, the better will be your chances of getting a referral. You should tell the people in your network about the kind of job that you are in search of and also about your skills and somebody would be able to provide assistance in securing a new job for you.
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Tip 2 – Tighten Your Belt and cut down on the expenses that are recurring
When you become unemployed all of a sudden, you will have to make adjustments in your budget to a certain extent and also stretch the severance received by you to the maximum possible extent. You need to lower your bills in order to make only those payments that you need to. This can mean that you need to cancel the cable and reduce the number of times that you go out for dinner as in the absence of the income that you were getting formerly, these smaller luxuries may stop you from making payments of the larger bills such as the mortgage or the rent. Thus, from your mobile bills to your mortgage, you need to bring down the monthly bills to as low as it is possible humanely. In case you do not have emergency funds that are adequate for helping you tide through the period of job search, then frugality becomes essential.
There are several ways of lowering your bills such as –
- Reducing your energy bills without any cost or sacrifice
- Make changes in your monthly expenses to save money
- For cutting on cell phones, internet and cable, make lesser calls
- Take the decision regarding refinancing for saving on your mortgage
- Eat healthy but save money on your groceries
- Automate your finances as well as change your habits related to spending
For tightening your belt a little, the first thing that you need to do is to cut the expenses on cable. However, you will not miss much on expenses. The fat from the different types of bills can be cut down by availing discounts. If this does not appear to work, you need to call your service providers and explain them about your new circumstances. There are chances that the service providers will help you and work in your favour. There is also a reasonable probability that as you are not working daily, you might have a different usage. For instance, there might not be a need of a larger data package on your mobile or the car insurance can be changed so as to show that you do not a two hour commute any longer.
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Tip 3 – Stay Healthy
Whenever you lose your job, you also end up losing your health insurance. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to stay healthy during the unemployment period. At times, the issues related to health may not be in our control but we can make efforts to eat well as sleep well along with exercising regularly.
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Tip 4 – Be Open to Opportunities
Many of the people who are unemployed can easily find jobs that are as well-paying as your old jobs. Therefore, they continue to face the choice of either looking for a job that is high paying or take up a job that is low paying. It is not necessary that people take the first offer that they get. However, in case the job is reasonable in terms of benefits, then it is advisable that you take up that job and continue to search for better jobs. Having an income that is lower than what you were getting previously is anytime better than having no income at all. Apart from full time employment opportunities you can also seek other opportunities of business and contract positions.
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Tip 5 – Rework Your Resume
After taking care of the cost of living, the time is right to search for a new job. In case you have been working for a while, there are chances that your resume has not been updated. There are also chances that your resume is not updated if you had been working for a long time. You need to rework on your resume for getting it ready for applying for a new job.
- For reworking on your resume, the following tips need to be followed –
- Get rid of the items in the resume that are junk and simplify it
- Fix the flaws in the resume
- New experiences need to be added without the addition of new pages
- Use your resume for generating more interviews
- Make the resume organised perfectly and simplify it
- The overused terms in the resume need to be cut
- Make the page of personal landing stand out
You need to update your resume, make it simplified and good-looking and organise it in a way which reflects the type of job that you are searching for.
It is easy to spend time to update the resume; however you should avoid wasting too much time on it. Once everything is settled, you need to head straight and start to apply for the jobs.
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Tip 6–Do not mope around but start your Job Hunting
It is horrible to lose your job however you should not waste your time by feeling sad about it. Whenever you are on the lookout for a new opportunity, you have to be confident with respect to the skills that you possess and let the people see that you are awesome. The more quickly you are able to overcome the initial bitterness, anger and disappointment, the more quickly you will be able to get something better.
When you are unemployed, the most important job that you have is to look for another job and therefore you need to focus on that. Based on the type of job that you want, there are a number of options that are available. It is good to start with the traditional sites such as LinkedIn as well as Craigslist but you can also visit the sites that are less popular like Authentic Jobs, Dice, Simply Hired and One Day One Job. You should not be afraid of switching your career as you progress.
On finding a job that you are really interested in and wish to apply for, you will have to generally have to write a cover letter. You need to write a cover letter in a way that people will actually read and you need to demonstrate the simple basic skills. A new cover letter needs to be written for every job that you apply for. At the same time you should also start preparing for the interview.
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Tip 7 – Organise Job Hunt
If income is required by you for your survival, then it should be your priority to find a new income source. When you are looking for a job, it is very helpful to maintain a log. You can note down the date your resume was submitted to certain companies along with the interview dates as well as the contact information. It is very important to be organised when you are all of a sudden required to maintain the appointments in several different places.
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Tip 8 – Keep Yourself Sane as well as Productive
Once all the technical details related to the filing for unemployment, bringing down your costs of health care, reducing your bills and beginning to apply for new jobs have been completed by you, you will realise that you have a lot of extra time with you. This may appear to be awesome initially but with time the psychological effects of unemployment will begin to show on you.
However, there are a number of measures which you can adopt for combating such feelings. The most important thing on which you need to concentrate on is to ensure that you are following a certain type of routine. Maintaining a schedule when you are unemployed is very essential. This can be done by following set timings for waking up, lunch and other projects. This will prove to be a great boon for your mental as well as physical well-being.
Even though your schedule will be different from what it was when you were employed, and you will be facing new set of challenges, you need to ensure that you are trying to work towards being productive all the time. This may mean that even if you have been applying for a number of jobs but have not got anywhere, you are at least able to do something which at the end of the day gives you a feeling of having been productive. For instance, if you are good at music you can record a few albums or if you are good at writing, you can write every day or try and learn the way to code in JavaScript. This will make you feel much better.
In case you are struggling in finding what you should do with your time, you might volunteer, take on a new skill, find a hobby that is not too costly, start a free routine of workouts or find out some of the ways to make money whenever you are free. You will be okay as long as you are able to do something and not just sit in the house and feel bad about the fact that you have nothing to do.
Being unemployed is an opportunity for you. The constraints that are related to the regular day to day jobs make it difficult to see the things that the future has in store for you in case you are not happy with the path of your career. The steady flow of money along with the silent buzzing of the fluorescent tend to put you in a complacent position.
According to a number of people, being unemployed is a kick in the teeth that is needed by a person so that he or she is able to make changes for the positive and in a way you should be thankful that you got such an opportunity. It is difficult to be able to view this initially as the open maw of the unknown at times makes it difficult for a person to breathe freely.
As human beings every day is a struggle for us to wrest control from the universe’s grip and then put it in our very own hands. Such a chance provided by being suddenly unemployed can help us in wresting that control from the universe. It will make you in charge of the things. Therefore, instead of being depressed you should focus on keep being positive and utilising this opportunity to refresh yourself so that you are completely ready to take up your next assignment in future.
