11 Vital Tips For Dealing With Unemployment During the Pandemic

11 Vital Tips For Dealing With Unemployment During the Pandemic

By Aid

None of this is intended to be legal, medical, or psychiatric advice. 

Quite a few businesses and employers are under pressure due to Covid and, unfortunately, that means lay-offs. During the pandemic, as many as 22.2 million jobs have been lost in the United States, and while the country is fighting to bring its unemployment numbers down, too many are still struggling to find work and make ends meet. If you are unemployed or suffering as a result of reduced work or pay, here are some solid tips to help you handle this crisis:

1) Stay Healthy: If you don’t have your health, you have nothing. This means, at the very least, washing your hands frequently, wearing two masks when in public and wearing them properly. If you are unsure of how to do that, check out this link. Try to eat well, try to get at least 8 hours of sleep. Also try to take at least 15 to 20 minutes every day to do something that helps you reduce stress, whether it is going for a walk, meditating, listening to music, reading a book, or just sitting on a park bench. Whatever you find helpful for maintaining balance, and staying positive. You will find that staying as healthy as you can, both mentally and physically, makes coping with challenging circumstances far easier.

2) Schedule and Budget: With no job to wake up for in the morning, it’s easy to go to bed later than usual, and wake up later than usual. It’s also easier to engage in habits that you wouldn't normally have as much time for such as playing video games, drinking, shopping, or whatever activity you like to do when you let loose. This can lead to problems with staying motivated and can drain your TIME and MONEY, which are some of your most valuable assets right now. It’s up to you how you ration your time and expenses, but you need to spend as many of your waking hours trying to find and apply for jobs as you can reasonably afford. Create a schedule and a budget for every day of the week, and stick to them. 

3) Tighten up that resume: Get on your computer, or go to the local library, pull up your resume, and workshop the hell out of it. Read as much guidance as you can find about how to put together a stellar resume for an individual in whatever industry you want to work in, and become an expert on the topic. Share your resume with friends, family, and any colleagues who are willing to look at it so that you can get as much feed back as possible. Print out a few copies of your resume and keep a digital copy saved on a USB drive, and keep those with you at all times. Applying for jobs is like fishing, and your resume is your fishing rod. Make it as strong as possible. Also, have a few different versions of your resume that you can use to apply for different jobs. Also, include some references on your resume if you can as well. Employers can be lazy and they don’t want to do more work than they have to when reviewing resumes. Including references saves employers time and makes you look extra prepared.

4) Write a solid cover letter: If your resume is your fishing rod, your cover letter is the bait. It should give employers an insight into who you are, your qualifications, why you want the job, and why you would be a good fit. Again, workshop the hell out of this, and get as much feedback as possible. Look at as many examples of cover letters as you can. Do your best to make it sound professional, but also try to make it stand out. If you are not the type to boast or brag about accomplishments, cut that crap out, and let employers know how good you are. You need to be your best advocate, and really sell yourself to employers. Keep a copy with you, and have a few different versions to compliment the different versions of your resume. Resumes and cover letters are more of an art than a science, so try different things out and learn from your mistakes if you can. If you find that one version of your resume or cover letter tends to work better than others at catching the attention of employers, try to figure out what it is exactly that does that, and try to replicate that in your other materials. 

5) Get on all the job sites: Job websites help you find out about job opportunities and enable you to send your application materials out to potential employers. The trick here is, after you feel you have a solid resume and cover letter, apply to as many opportunities as you can. Every application you send out is a fishing line, and the more of them you set up, the more chance you have of catching something. Some good job sites are Indeed, Monster, Linkedin, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor. Also, your State government may have a website that’s meant to help unemployed people find work. Here is New York’s website for example. Create profiles on as many of them as you can, and go on each of them every day. It may seem overwhelming at first, but this is the work you need to do to find work. 

6) Get used to hearing “no”: The hard truth you must understand is: You are going to be rejected by most of the employers you apply to, and there will come at least one point when you feel horribly discouraged by the whole job finding process (probably several points). You might find a job that is a perfect fit for someone with your skills and your background, but that has no bearing on whether you will actually get the job. There is a ton of luck involved, and some people win the lottery the first time they play. That does not happen to the majority of people. Keep that in mind, and do your best to keep powering through applications, even when you feel like every employer on the planet wants nothing to do with you. You must be your best advocate, and that means being tenacious.

7) Read the news: Staying up to speed on current affairs, nationally and in your local area, is useful when you are looking for work, because you might find out about new opportunities that you otherwise would never have come across. Having an idea about what is going on in the world can actually help you anticipate which employers are worth applying to, and which events may be worth attending. Maybe you will hear about a company having a hiring surge, or a new business is moving to your town, or maybe you will read about a job fair taking place soon. You never know what might come up, and staying informed helps you stay creative in your job search.

8) Apply to employers directly: Most employers do not post on the job websites. Do some research on the best companies to work for, and also look into types of employers who might be in need of someone with your training and expertise. After that, go on the company’s website, and look for job opportunities. If you see one you think looks interesting or relevant to you, then apply. Many companies require you to create a profile on their website as part of the application process. This can be tedious, but it is not too different from creating a profile on any of the job websites you are on. Remember to do a bit of research on the prospective employer or company, and tailor your resume and cover letter to suit them.

9) Think outside the box: Being unemployed sucks, but you can also treat it as an opportunity to change your life. Consider all of your skills, training, background, and experience. Even consider the languages you speak. Then brainstorm all the different types of jobs you can apply to, even if you might not consider yourself fully qualified for the position. Some employers are willing to take candidates with little to no experience in their field, and train them to be able to do the job. Consider on-site jobs as well as remote positions. Maybe now is the time to consider a different career path from the one you were on. If job opportunities in your area are few and far between, maybe now is the time to relocate to a place with more opportunities. Maybe you want to live closer to family, or friends. Maybe you want to consider doing something completely different, like working in a different country. Many foreign schools and students are looking for English speakers to work as faculty members and tutors, and teachers are treated far better in some of those countries compared to the US. Use your imagination to increase the variety of opportunities available to you.

10) Earn some new credentials: If you have time to spare after engaging in your hardcore daily job search, consider learning some new skills and earning some new credentials to improve your resume. Research what kind of certifications employers like to see on resumes in your desired field (if that fails, employers are always happy to see when a candidate can speak more than one language). Moreover, if you are thinking of changing careers, look into what kind of training or education you would need to make that change happen. There are some great on-line academic resources as well. I have recommended Coursera, Edx, and Udemy before. Taking classes and continuing to learn shows employers that you are using your unemployed time wisely, and shows that you are committed to growing and applying your abilities.

11) Volunteer and Connect With Others: If you have spare time and on-line learning is not your thing, consider volunteering to help a cause or group that needs help, or taking part in an internship. Volunteering and internships are great ways to learn new skills, and stay busy while doing something meaningful with your time. They look good on a resume, because they show employers that you like to stay busy and are willing to work hard, even when you are not being paid for your services. Also, and possibly more importantly, it is a great way to make connections, network, and build references. Remember that 70% of all jobs aren’t published publicly on jobs sites, and about 80% of jobs are filled via personal and professional connections. Who you know may end up determining where your next paycheck comes from.