Newly Unemployed – Engaging in productive and meaningful employment is significant for a person’s health and ability to take part in everyday life. Work helps in providing support to people in achieving their potential. It also gives structure to their day-to-day routines. It also helps meet the person’s basic financial needs, enabling complete participation.
When a person experiences an unplanned or unexpected loss of a job or work, it affects the general well-being and physical and emotional health of the worker and his entire family. A cascading effect results from the loss of work, disrupt daily routines, weakens social connections, and causes financial instability. This also erases a person’s work identity, which diminishes his self-worth.
The time change uncertainty after becoming unemployed. This affects men and women of all socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, and races. There is more stress, anxiety, and worry regarding managing the existing difficulties and coping with the unknown aspects in the future. However, certain tips may be useful for the newly unemployed.
8 Effective Tips For Newly Unemployed
Tip 1 – Tell everyone that you are now unemployed
You should not feel ashamed to tell people you are searching for a job. The more the number of people who come to know about it, the better your chances of getting a referral will be. You should tell the people in your network about the dream job you are searching for and your skills. At least somebody could assist you in securing a new job for you.
Tip 2 – Tighten your belt and cut down on the recurring expenses
When you become unemployed all of a sudden, you will have to adjust your budget and stretch the severance you received to the maximum possible extent. You need to lower your bills to make only those payments you need to. This can mean you must cancel the cable and reduce your dinner times. As in the absence of income, you were getting these smaller luxuries. You may suffer in making payments for larger bills such as the mortgage or the rent. Thus, from your mobile bills to your mortgage, you must humanely bring down the monthly bills to as low as possible. If you do not have emergency funds to help you tide through the 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 healthily but save money on your groceries
- Automate your finances as well as change your habits related to spending
To tighten your belt a little, the first thing 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 of discounts. If this does not work, you need to call your service providers and explain your new circumstances. There are chances that the service providers will help you and work in your favor. There is also a reasonable probability that you might have a different usage as you are not working days. For instance, there might not be a need for a larger data package on your mobile or car insurance, which can be changed.
Tip 3 – Stay healthy
Whenever you lose your job, you also end up losing your health insurance. Therefore, it is 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 and sleep well, along with exercising regularly.
Tip 4 – Be open to opportunities
Many unemployed people can easily find jobs that are as well-paying as their old jobs. Therefore, they continue to look 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, if the job is reasonable in terms of benefits, then it is advisable to take it and continue searching for better jobs. Having an income lower than what you were getting is any better than having no income. You can also seek other opportunities for business and contract positions besides full-time employment opportunities.
Tip 5 – Rework your resume
After making the cost of living, the time is to search for a new job. If you have been working for a while, there are chances that you have not updated your resume. You need to rework your resume to get it ready for applying for a new job.
- For reworking 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 to generate more interviews
- Make the resume perfectly organized and simple
- Avoid overusing of terms in the resume
- Make the page of personal landing stand out
You need to update your resume to be simple and good-looking and organize it to reflect the type of job you are searching for.
It is easy to update the resume. However, you should avoid wasting too much time on it. You should head straight and start applying for the jobs.
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 feeling sad about it. Whenever you are looking for a new opportunity, you have to be confident with respect to your skills and let 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 is to look for another job; therefore, you need to focus on that. Based on the type of job you want, there are several available options. It is good to start with traditional sites such as LinkedIn and Craigslist, but you can also visit the less popular sites, like Authentic Jobs, Dice, Simply Hired, and One Day One Job. You should not be afraid of switching your career as you progress.
To find a job you wish to apply for, you will have to write a cover letter generally. You need to write a cover letter in a way that people will actually read, and you need to demonstrate simple basic skills. A new cover letter must be written for every job you apply for. At the same time, you should also start preparing for the interview.
Tip 7 – Organise job hunt
If you require income 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 of submitting your resume to certain companies, interview dates, and contact information. It is very important to be organized when you are suddenly required to maintain appointments in several places.
Tip 8 – Keep yourself sane as well as productive
Once all the technical details related to 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 realize 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 that you can adopt to combat such feelings. The most important thing you need to concentrate on is following a certain type of routine. It is essential to maintain a schedule when you are unemployed. 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 differ, you will face new challenges when unemployed. You must ensure that you are always trying to work towards being productive. This means that even if you have been applying for a number of jobs but have not got anywhere, you can at least do something. At the end of the day, it gives you a feeling of being productive. For instance, you can record a few albums if you are good at music. 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.
If you struggle to find what you should do with your time, you might volunteer, take on a new skill, find a less costly hobby, start a free routine of workouts, or find out some ways to make money whenever you are free. You will be okay if you can do something and not just sit in the house and feel bad that you have nothing to do.
Being unemployed is an opportunity for you. The constraints related to 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 and 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 needed by a person so that he or she can 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 wrestle that control from the universe. It will make you in charge of things. Therefore, instead of being depressed, you should focus on remaining positive and utilizing this opportunity to refresh yourself so that you are completely ready to take up your next assignment.
