You go to work and think that everything is fine. Your manager changes the time of your weekly one-on-one meeting. You find that odd but think nothing more of it. In the meeting you find someone new sitting there. Your manager tells you this person is from HR. This almost always means something bad is about to go down. You know you’re about to be let go. Moments later, your worst fears are confirmed: You’ve been let go. Now, you have to deal with the aftermath of joblessness. Here are some tips to survive the unemployment storm.
Emergency Fund to Survive Unemployment
First things first. Do you have an emergency fund to survive unemployment? We’ll bring up the necessity of having an emergency fund over and over here at Money Freedom Guy. With an emergency fund in place, your stress levels and anxiety go way down. An emergency fund is cash-on-hand that covers 3, 6, 9, 12, or however many months of spending you need covered. It covers your monthly burn rate. Your monthly burn rate includes things such as:
- Mortgage/rent
- Utilities (gas, electric, cell phone, water, garbage, etc.)
- Car payments
- Medical care and/or payments
- Gym subscription.
- Coffee subscription
- Kids’ tuition
In general, these are compulsory-type spending, meaning you have to spend this money in order to live and survive.
Your emergency fund covers your hobbies, too. You may enjoy weekly visits to the ocean, hikes at a state park, or finding a quiet spot in the mountains to paint. Having this extra money in your emergency fund enables you to continue doing these things while you’re looking for a new job.
These activities help to retain a sense of normalcy when the stress is high from not having a job. Getting out of the house to change the scenery helps a great deal, too.
Apply for Unemployment
In all states of the United States, you can apply for unemployment benefits through your State Employment Development Department (EDD) office. These are called unemployment benefits claims. It can take anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks for the EDD to approve your claim. In some cases, the EDD may even schedule an interview with you to verify details of your claim. So, get on the application sooner than later.
The government is equitable when it comes to providing benefits. For example, you applied for benefits in September, the month you lost your job. You made more than the threshold to qualify for unemployment in September. Beyond this, you are qualified for benefits. The EDD office, however, wants to interview you first. The soonest they can is in November. You technically qualify for benefits payments in October and November, because you’ve stopped working and are no longer generating income. Once the EDD approves your claim in November, they will back pay you for October, too.
Apply for Subsidized Health Care
At the same time, apply for subsidized healthcare. In some states, you apply through the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka ObamaCare). Some states have their own version. For example, California has CoveredCA.
Like the unemployment benefits, this subsidized healthcare is backdated, too.
Wake up the Same Time Every Day
It’s tempting to stay up until 3 am in the morning every night and wake up at 11 am. I know. I did just this.
Rather, treat your job hunting days as if you’re working. This is because you are working. Looking for a job is a full time job. It helps to treat this as a job. The recruiters at companies are already up and making phone calls to candidates. You’ll want to be wide awake and ready to talk to them. Miss one phone call and you might have just missed your chance at getting a job.
Dress for Success to Survive Unemployment
The running joke for most Zoom calls during the Pandemic and sheltering-in-place is that most people only got dressed from the waist up. They wore a dress shirt or polo shirt so that they looked professional in front of the camera. Waist down, some people had neglected to wear pants. There have been embarrassing moments when the person forgot the camera was still on, got up, and started walking around the room.
While you’re looking for a job, get dressed every day as if you’re going to work! This shifts your energy, too. Sick people know that one secret to getting better faster is to dress up. When you dress up, you’re expecting to feel better soon. In fact, you do feel better. In this way, dressing up elevates your expectation that you’ll find a job soon and be back to work, being a productive member of society and for yourself.
Avoid Being Stuck at Home
Finding a job sucks. It’s hard to say this any other way. You stare at your computer for 8 hours a day. For every job posting that interests you, you spend another few hours crafting a targeted resume to the job description. Then you submit your resume, hopeful all that work means it gets past the automated applicant tracking system which filters on keywords, meaning only a computer looks at your resume. If your resume gets to a recruiter, they may look at your resume all of 6 seconds before throwing it into the trash. They’ve already elected someone more qualified than you.
Weeks later, you hear nothing from the many companies to which you applied. You reach out to your network in hopes that they can get you past the automated system and put your resume in front of human eyes. Soon, a month past with zero interest. All hope diminishes.
Looking for a job is draining on your soul. Even if you get a pre-screen, you still have a bunch more hoops to jump through. You can get dropped at any time. Soon, you start to wonder about your worth. Yet, somehow you have to move from one rejection to another with a big, dumb smile as you eat yet another shit sandwich.
During these times, it helps to get out of the house at least once every day, if for just a few minutes. For example, if your grocery store is within walking distance, then consider walking to the grocery store every day to get what you need for the day. While you would not do this when you’re employed, you are unemployed at the moment. Having a forced change of scenery can do wonders for your mood.
Keep Applying to Jobs Anyway to Survive Unemployment
With all that goes on in the seemingly futile nature of a job hunt, is it any wonder you’d be doing great if you applied to a minimum of 3 jobs a day? This is the ideal metric to strive towards, as this means you’ll be applying to 15 jobs a day during your first week of unemployment. In the following weeks, you’re still doing great if you apply to 5 jobs a week.
I know someone who has been unemployed now for 6 months. When I ask him how the job search is going, he outright ignores the question with a series of excuses. For example, he’s too busy right now because he’s taking his father to the doctor’s office. He’s donating platelets. Or, he’s visiting a friend in the hospital and not even thinking of the job search.
Unfortunately, I’ve worked with this person in the past. I know there is an absolute failure on his part to focus and follow through with anything while working at our last company. I know he’s likely not doing anything on any given day to look for a job. Before he started with us, he had been unemployed for over a year and a half!
The lesson is simple: Don’t be like my friend. Even if the job hunt sucks and you just want to sleep in until 11 am every day, avoid the temptation to do so. Treat the weekdays you’re job hunting as if you’re at a full-time job. Look through many of the same sites you’ve already looked through the prior day, and the day prior to that. There may be new job postings on this new day.
It Takes Time and Volume to Find a Job
The average corporate job posting receives roughly 250 applicants. On average, it takes 21 to 80 job applications to get one job offer. 61.7% of job seekers get at least one interview by sending 1 to 10 job applications. 51% of job seekers receive a job offer after having 3 job interviews. (Source: Zippia)
Keep a Progress Log
Keep a log of every single job you’ve applied to. When you can see to how many to jobs you’ve applied on a daily and weekly basis, you’ll feel better when you have yet to hear from any companies for the next month. You check your logs and see that on average you apply to N jobs a day. In essence, you’re doing everything that is within your control. You can control perhaps just 5% of what goes on around you. The rest, 95%, you really have zero control over. Logs help remind you of this fact.
You’re at the mercy and whim of the company. Whether you get the job or not falls on the interviewer. The interviewer can be a shitty interviewer, not knowing how to ask questions the right way. This means you just bombed the interview. They think you’re a less-than-ideal candidate, but in essence they just stink at interviewing. These are things beyond your control. Sure, you can take a proactive approach and rephrase the question to show that you understand the question.
Rephrasing is a diplomatic way of saying you need clarification on the question. This helps avoid bad situations, like telling the interviewer that you are having a hard time understanding them because of their heavy accent.
Restating the question in a different way helps to make sure that the two of you are on the same page when it comes to understanding the problem. This shows your effectiveness at solving a problem together, avoiding the waste of valuable time.
Exercise Daily
Likewise, exercise for a few hours every day to weather and survive unemployment. Take an extended walk. Go to the gym. Do some yard work. The movement helps you to de-stress. By having a goal like daily physical exercise, you’re strengthening some mental muscles called willpower and discipline. It’s easy to fall into a pit of despair during your job hunt and stop applying to jobs. By having a daily routine, you have something to look forward to.
Learn Something New
During your job search, you may notice new buzzwords or skillsets that employers are now wanting. You went to school for one thing; yet, the job requires another set of skills. I started my career as a computer engineer but have done little in terms of laying out hardware boards. My work started off on the C/C++ side. Then I had to teach myself Python because I noticed throughout the years that the job descriptions called for more and more candidates who know Python. Now, I’m teaching myself machine learning as this has become the new buzzword in job descriptions.
To make yourself more marketable in the job market, you have to always be learning new skills. The only constant is change. This is what you must do to survive unemployment.
Talk to People to Survive Unemployment
The prow for a new job can take a while. At best, it can be both discouraging and demoralizing. It helps to talk to someone weekly, especially if you live alone, with no one to talk to. Ideally, this someone is looking for a job, too. That way, the two of you can share notes and help one another keep an eye out for opportunities. It’s true that misery loves company. Commiserate the difficulties. Acknowledge the pain and the lengthy process. At the same point, do your best to avoid spending the entire conversation on how much everything sucks in your lives.
In other words, it’s alright to spend some time complaining but it’s not healthy to spend all your time complaining. At some point, you have to accept that this is just the way things are. You’re under attack, my friend. To survive unemployment, you control what is within your power to control and change.
Stop Job Hunting for at Least half a Day to a Whole Day
You have to step away from the job hunt for at least half a day to a whole day out of the work week. This means giving yourself time off during the week, Monday through Friday. Looking for jobs at a full 40 hours a week is too stressful. Heck, most people don’t really work 40 hours a week. In some studies, the average worker is productive at most 50% of the time. This is out of a 40-hour work week. A job hunt is no different.
Even though I give myself a half day off, I sometimes still find myself applying to jobs, even on a weekend. This is in spite of the advice I give here. In essence, it’s hard to turn things off, which is why it’s a good idea to take an afternoon off. Leave the house. Take a ride on your bicycle. Go window shopping. Hike. Meditate. Step away from the uncertainty and the stress of looking for a job.
It will be easier when you actually get phone calls from the recruiter. Rather than feeling nervous about not getting the job and saying the wrong things to spoil your changes, you’re coming from a place of peace and acceptance. You become more outcome independent. Outcome independence means you could care less if you get the job. Human psychology being what it is, we want what is hard to obtain. This makes the recruiter chase harder after you.
You Can Survive Unemployment!
If this is the first time you find yourself unemployed, then welcome to the real world. I’ve been unemployed a few times now. I wish I could say I got used to it, but each time is jarring. I went through layoffs with one of my old employers. Every July through October, we can expect to see around 100 to 150 people get let go. Though I somehow managed to survive these layoffs and avoid unemployment for six years, I never got used to it. I have come to realize, too, that I was spared the headache of unemployment for these six years because I made far below the average salary for someone with my experience. The company can afford to keep me because I’m willing to work for cheap. Now that I make more money, I can expect these lay offs to be the norm.
To reiterate:
- Have an emergency fund
- Apply for unemployment benefits.
- Apply for subsidized healthcare.
- Wake up the same time every day
- Dress for success!
- Keep applying to jobs.
- Keep a progress log.
- Exercise daily or get out of the house and go on walks every day.
- Learn something new.
- Talk to other people in your shoes. It’s kind of like a support group for job hunters.
- Finally, give yourself some time off during the work week.
You can do this! Joblessness is but a temporary condition. My parents, who didn’t speak English, managed to make it through periods of unemployment. They even bought a house and raised two kids. If they can do it from a disadvantaged position, then so can you.