Being Laid off or Fired isn’t the best feeling.
We begin to experience a variety of emotions including – but not limited to Fear, Anger, Frustration, Disappointment. After this feeling sets in, our minds will do what it does best – make us comfortable and adapt to the situation. It all happens subconsciously.. before you know it.. we start sleeping late, laying around the house, drinking, eating whatever, not exercising, not reading and worst of all – we become all to familiar with the word “tomorrow”. After tomorrow, becomes next week, becomes next month and next year.
How do we prevent this process?
Changing our response to the situation by utilizing the following steps:
1. Disconnect
Before going to bed turn off your social media notifications. Disconnect from social media and focus on being your number 1 follower. While unemployed, we don’t have the option of following or watching other people. Time to focus on you.
2. Time to Wake Up
Set your alarm to wake you up at 6am every morning. Don’t look at your phone! Leave it on the charger. The key is to keep your body clock normal and prepare it for the new job you’ll have which will require – that you wake up at 6am.
3. Morning Disconnection
Don’t turn on your TV or Radio. Nothing happening in the world is more important – than you getting back to work. The only news you need to know is – you’re alive and you need a job.
4. Fuel
Walk to the kitchen and drink a large cup of water, veggie juice or fruit smoothie (See Reboot With Joe for recipes) no need to take pics of drink to share with anyone – this all for you.
5. Prepare your Tool Kit
Open your Pandora and create the “Pop Fitness” station. You don’t want to listen to any music with violence, ignorance or focus on meaningless values. Garbage In \ Garbage Out.
If you really want to rock out – download the Audible App, then do to Audible.com and purchase the Audible Subscription which allows you 2 Audiobooks a month for a $22 monthly fee. A small price to pay for the value you’ll receive from them. As a first book – I would suggest – “Success Principles” by Jack Canfield. You can find my favorite books here – The 15 Most Influential Books I’ve Read
6. Operation “Leave the House”
Now that you have your listening material ready.. Take a shower, put your sweats or shorts on and leave the house. No friends \ no family – just you.. give yourself time to think. NO SOCIAL MEDIA and TEXTING.
Don’t worry – everyone will understand and respect you if you’re too focused to chat. If not, you may need to re-access the people you’re chatting with.
7. Exercise
Go for a 45 minute walk in your neighborhood, park or track. If you have a gym membership – go to the gym to do cardio or light exercise. We don’t want to do to much.. the goal is to get those endorphins moving. When you exercise, your body releases chemicals called endorphins. They trigger a positive feeling in the body, which reduces stress, ward off anxiety and feelings of depression and boost self-esteem. After you’re done – come home take a shower, have a light breakfast and get to work.
8. Behavioral Structuring
Now that you’ve started your day like a champion. Time to determine where your headquarters will be.
Rule #1 – Do not go back to your bed or couch until you’ve completed your tasks for the day. I personally recommend a local library or book store.. anywhere that prevents you from being distracted or sleeping.
Just like beds are for sleeping.. Libraries and Bookstores are for Production. Not to mention.. Libraries offer computers and job searching resources. If there isn’t a Library near you – sit at your table or desk (No music, TV or radio)
9. 12 Awesome Job Sites
Review the following Job Sites Daily to assist you in getting back into the Job Market
Indeed – http://www.indeed.com/
53 percent of all Internet-based job search traffic in the United States. If you’re not sure where to start, Indeed has tips to help. You don’t even have to keep revisiting the site; it will help you set up searches that arrive in your inbox, or you can paste a URL for search results into an RSS reader for a constant feed.
CareerBuilder – http://www.careerbuilder.com/
You can store up to five résumés and cover letters publicly or privately, and create up to five personal search agents to receive emailed job listings daily or weekly. If you’re unsure about where to start, upload your résumé to CareerBuilder and the site will scan it and match jobs according to your experience. If you don’t have a résumé, simply search for jobs within CareerBuilder and the site will recommend positions based on your experience.
Monster – http://www.monster.com/
Monster also provides tons of articles with advice for getting the most out of your job search, your résumé, interviews, and your career.
Craigslist – http://www.craigslist.org/
It’s definitely more bare-bones than any other job search website—you can’t sign up for email updates or post your résumé—but Craigslist certainly has plenty of jobs to offer and it specializes in finding openings in your vicinity. Listings aren’t pulled in from other aggregator sites; they’re all individually posted by employers. Jobs categories can be pretty broad though, so the downside is you may have to look harder to find that perfect position.
LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com
Is “professional” social network. Your profile is essentially your résumé, listing all your work experience and skills, and connecting you with contacts. Employers can list jobs on the site to recruit the best candidates, the listings are available for you to search, and of course, it’s a great site for investigating potential employers. Some companies will let you apply with nothing more than your LinkedIn profile. If you see one of your LinkedIn connections is LinkedIn with someone at a company you’re applying to, you can ask them to introduce you. LinkedIn’s ability to connect you to others in your field (and beyond) makes it arguably the strongest job search weapon in your arsenal.
Simple Hired – http://www.simplyhired.com/
Similar in look and feel to Indeed, Simply Hired pulls listings from thousands of sites across the Web, including job boards, company career sites, newspapers, non-profit organizations, government sites, and more. Creating an account allows you to name, save, and manage searches; manage email alerts; revisit jobs you’ve already viewed; rate and save notes about jobs you’ve viewed; and block specific companies or sites from showing up in your searches.
Glassdoor – http://www.glassdoor.com/
So you found a job description that sounds worthy, but is the company a good fit? Do your research on Glassdoor.com, a free career community that gives you an inside look at jobs and employers. Its “employee-generated content” includes salary reports, company reviews, interview questions, and more—all of which are posted by employees (current and ex), job seekers, and even the company’s higher-ups. Thinking about making a career shift for more money? Glassdoor helpfully lists average salaries for specific positions too.
MediaBistro – http://www.mediabistro.com/
Journalists, creatives, or anyone in the media should all know about Mediabistro. Not only is it a leading site for informational blogs and on-going educational opportunities (especially in the New York City area), it’s also the primary place to look for a media/journalism job online.
Dice – http://www.dice.com/
If you’re interested in technology—and potentially jobs related to technology too. Dice.com is the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, with thousands of job listings at every IT level, from entry to senior.
Internships – http://www.internships.com/
Its a site all about finding—you guessed it, internships.
Idealist – http://www.idealist.org/
Not everyone is in it for the money. If you want a job that’s about more than a paycheck, and maybe even one that helps others, drop by Idealist, the biggest site catering to job listings for non-profits, as well as volunteer opportunities and internships. There are no ads at Idealist since the site is funded by individual contributions and grants, as well as fees from organizations that post jobs.
Proven – http://www.proven.com/
Proven is a little different from the rest. While it does have a website that lets you search for jobs (aggregating listings from Simply Hired and Craigslist, among others) and lets you store multiple versions of your résumé, its strength comes from its mobility. Proven has Android and iOS apps so that no matter where you are, if that perfect job comes up you can apply for it. The apps even let you tweak a résumé before you send it out, and helps track all your current applications.
Source Article for these job sites: http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/294523/the-best-job-search-websites
Now that you have the steps above the most important thing is consistency.
Remember, its not what happens to us – its how we respond to – what happens to us!
