• your pink slip marks the separation between you and a position that you have worked diligently to achieve;
• you must leave the corporation to which you have given many years of your loyalty;
• you are an older employee, perhaps in a managerial capacity.

While we are not psychotherapists, our position as well-established career professionals has allowed us to experience, via interaction with our clients, the desperate, very real, and sometimes heart-breaking results of unemployment.  As means of counteracting these results, we offer the following insights and suggestions.

Your depression is real.  It is normal to feel saddened and angry after an involuntary separation from your employer.  It is only human to mourn the loss of your job and to fear for your financial future.  What is not normal, however, is the state of panic that immobilizes you to the degree that you can no longer summon the energy to get up off the couch, shower, and dress for an interview.  If you are experiencing such feelings or even darker thoughts, you may be suffering from clinical depression, an actual condition that can only be diagnosed and treated by a skilled, licensed therapist.  If you need to consult such a specialist, there is no shame in taking this positive action.  Through focused therapy, insightful examination of your feelings can lead you onto the road of emotional healing and renew your stamina to move forward.

Birds of a feather.  Support groups of a non-clinical nature are available for those facing unemployment; seek them out, if you feel the need.  While you may find comfort in speaking with people who hail from your own sphere of influence (a church group, for instance), you may prefer the anonymity of Internet sites devoted to discussions and tips about regaining your place in the workforce.

Unemployment Benefits.  If you are entitled to unemployment benefits, begin the claim process immediately upon your termination; a lead-time of several weeks is required before you receive your first check.  Should you feel that you have been denied such benefits unjustifiably, you are entitled to state your case to a representative of the Unemployment Office.  He or she will then launch an investigation into your circumstances as well as your employer’s position, and will then render a decision, based upon applicable guidelines and regulations.

Regardless of the name of the entity in your state, the branch of the government handling unemployment benefits is not merely the presenter of funds from an account into which you, as a member of the working force, have paid.  Your local Unemployment Office may sanction you for certain training classes, free of charge, so as to prepare you to reenter the job market.  As the applicable Department’s guidelines change fairly frequently, do not rely upon information that you may have received in the past; ascertain what those guidelines currently permit.

Be a Big Brother or a Big Sister.  For the serious job seeker, the search for the next position can itself be a full time job.  The process of waiting for the phone to ring, interviewing, and hoping for the job offer to appear can be frustrating, intimidating, and even debilitating.  Lighten your emotional burden by lightening someone else’s.  It may sound trite, but volunteering a few hours of your time each week to a cause you deem worthy may help you in more ways than you may imagine.  An active role in community service will allow you to step outside of yourself for a bit, providing you with a fresher perspective and greater confidence, even as you advance the objectives of your chosen charitable organization.

In a more practical vein, volunteer work looks good on your resume, especially if you are an older employee.  It speaks of your commitment to others and your ability to organize, promote, and/or participate in events that benefit the community-at-large.  On an interview, when you are asked “what else” you have been doing with your time as you job seek (and you will be asked this question), you can speak honestly and perhaps passionately about the cause with which you are affiliated.  If you are able, you can subtly introduce the communicative, negotiating, organizational, and other skills upon which you have capitalized during your voluntary experience.  Feel free to highlight one or two specific accomplishments, such as, “I personally raised $1,200 in a three-hour telephone drive” or “I personally recruited three more volunteers into the cause.”

The third, potential benefit of volunteering for a worthy cause is that it will bring you into contact with new people, some of whom may even turn out to be good networking sources for you!

Although your termination may have had nothing whatsoever do with your performance and everything to do with a lackluster economy, it may nevertheless be inevitable.  Before you succumb to the fears that can leave you wondering how you are going to get up off the couch much less conduct a job search, pull your head up out of the sand.  Rumors of takeovers and downsizing usually have their basis in reality.  The signposts pointing to layoffs and company closures are usually quite visible; face them squarely in order to be prepared.  The most glaring signal of all is the advice of an employer who assures you that you have absolutely nothing to worry about.  In most cases, we have usually found the opposite to be true.  So as not to precipitate a mass exodus of employees who must run the ship until it sinks, an employer is compelled to paint a rosy picture for you.  Don’t believe it.  The bloom is off the rose, so be proactive.

Conduct an honest assessment of your skills, strengths, and weaknesses.  No one can do this for you, and if you cheat, you only cheat yourself.  Your lists should indicate our specific skills (i.e., sales presentations, establishing meaningful relationships with clients) and accomplishments (i.e. “increased sales volume by 6% over the prior year”).  If you have traveled 60% of the time as a sales representative, for instance, and are weary of the road, determine what percentage of your week, month, or year you are willing to travel for business.

Make a second list.  What if the well of your industry is running dry?  What if, for example, the widgets that your company has produced for the past forty-three years are now being manufactured more cost effectively overseas?  If you had to transition into another industry, understand and be able to speak intelligently about the transferable skills that you have acquired, which will have value in another industry.

Start your job search.  Your first steps are a well-crafted resume, cover letter, and follow-up letter. Without the resume and cover letter that must sell your skills and drive a potential employer to contact you, you have little chance of getting your foot in the door.  And without a follow-up letter, you may be perceived as uninterested in the jobs for which you have gained interviews.

Network.  If you are a member of a professional organization (i.e., the American Nurses Association) and have caught the wind of change blowing through your company, take a more active role in terms of your professional affiliation(s).  Attend meetings regularly and speak with your peers, including those in the position to hire.  Join your local Chamber of Commerce, or several Chambers of Commerce, in order to make those vital professional connections.

If you have been blessed with a job that has provided you with a customer base satisfied with your service, and if you feel safe enough with several of your customers, you may wish to “put feelers out” concerning potential positions.

The Internet.  Never underestimate the power of the job boards:  the most wide-reaching tool for your employment search.  For additional information and guidelines, for those not quite familiar with the major job boards, please see other articles on our Website.

Interview, interview, interview!  Even if you are not fully prepared to make the break from your employer before he is forced to terminate you, arrange as many interviews as you can.  By familiarizing yourself with the questions that employers will pose, and by understanding the questions that you yourself should be asking the interviewer, you will gain the knowledge and confidence that you require to sail through what you may not have experienced in a number of years.  And, you never do know when one of those “test interviews” will yield your next job!

In expressing a personal or career accomplishment, most people simply state a result; such as, “increased sales by 20%.”  That result, however, is largely meaningless outside of the context within which it was produced.  Reading the result only is very much akin to reading only the ending of a novel.  Without an understanding of what came before, the reader is neither engaged nor informed.

To create a persuasive and compelling description of an accomplishment requires four elements:  a depiction of the situation or status quo prior to the arrival or action of the candidate, a characterization of the opportunity that the existent situation presented the candidate, a description of the action(s) taken to remedy or improve the situation, and a delineation of the measurable results produced by virtue of those actions.

By making your accomplishments “SOAR,” you will develop memorable stories that will create a powerful and positive first impression, gain the attention of the reader, and dramatically enhance your opportunities to secure interviews and job offers.

Riddle:  When is a woman most like an octopus?

Answer:  When the woman is a single mother.

Every mother fills multiple, evolving positions that include and are not limited to educator, mentor, coach (literally and figuratively), chauffeur, cook, laundress, seamstress, baker of goods for last-minute school fundraisers, confidante, role model, and disciplinarian.  Carrying these responsibilities without the aid of a mate or partner, it is the shoulders of the single mother, however, that bear the heaviest weight.  The necessity to provide her child with the basic necessities propels her into the work force where, spurred by fears of impending unemployment, her productivity and efficiency can exceed that of her colleagues.  If unemployed, she must work diligently at the job of securing work:  devising resumes, cover letters, follow up letters and integrating them into a well-planned and executed employment strategy.  If employed, she must often juggle two jobs simultaneously with other needs that can appear, perhaps superficially, to be less vital.

Conscientious mothers, however, understand that, beyond food, clothing, and shelter, their children require nurturing:  the key element essential to every child’s well being and self-esteem, and an element that, due to time constraints, can be overlooked or, at best, rushed.  Therefore, along with the demands of the workforce or the job search, and her role as caregiver, a single mom becomes the sun in her child’s universe, the giver and sustainer of life, the lifter of spirits, the healer of scraped knees and wounded hearts around which the child revolves for his every emotional and physical need.

Loving mothers, however, view their children as the center of their galaxy and themselves, the bodies consigned to circle the young ones.  It is the inexorable circling, the never-ending cycle of work and giving until there is no more to give, that produces such a burden, the mother can crumble under the weight of her responsibilities.  Exhausted, angry, frustrated, distracted at work at a time when focus on the job is paramount, the resultant stress builds and eventually snaps as single mothers, good mothers, fail to honor the fact that they, too, require nurturing from both internal and external sources.

Houses of worship, schools, and the vast human services network, linking myriad organizations and agencies all provide various means through which single mothers can gain the resources and coping mechanisms that will impact and improve their lives, and ultimately, the lives of their children.  Vocational training and retraining, psychosocial/family counseling services, professional resume writing services, job aid placement, and even financial aid can be accessed via these branches – provided the single mother is willing to reach out to them!  Help may also be available through family members, friends, neighbors, and after-school programs, all of which can ease, at the very least, the logistical stress of having to be in two places at once.

Assistance also exists from within when single mothers perceive themselves as they already are:  strong, responsible, loving, and focused.  If you are a single parent, congratulate yourself on getting this far alone, and park no guilt in that desolate lot you view as your failures.  Attach no blame to the fact that you cannot do it alone.  Cite, or better yet, read Former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s best selling book, which centers around the reality that “It Takes a Village” to raise a child.  Reward your efforts with regular breaks:  small indulgences of time and pleasure that will energize you, reduce your stress, and grant you the impetus to go forward.

These indulgences need not be costly.  A walk in the park as the leaves unfurl at Spring or color in Fall, an inexpensive lunch or dinner with a friend, a few hours at the zoo with or without your child, an afternoon in a bookstore, turning the pages of “Chicken Soup for Mothers,” from the popular “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, or an hour under headphones at the same bookstore, sampling new music without charge:  these are but a few suggestions for accessing the stress reducers that enable you to remember that you, too, count; that you, too, require and deserve the very best of care.

In the 1978 blockbuster motion picture Superman, Lois Lane falls from a rooftop in New York City.  Recognizing her peril, the “Man of Steel” swoops down to catch the falling Lane.  “Easy, Miss. I’ve got you,” he says with his trademark grin.  “You, you’ve got me? Who’s got you?” replies Lane, looking down over his arms to the sidewalk hundreds of feet below.

In works of fiction, it seems that most all of the “good guys/gals” portrayed have a guardian or safety net protecting them from the direst consequences that life may present.  How about you?  In your life and, most particularly, your career, do you have a safety net?

For those employees, like corporate CEO’s and professional athletes, contract provisions negotiated by attorneys, agents, and/or the individuals themselves often contain clauses protecting them from losses of income due to illness, termination, or other misfortunes.  The “Golden Parachutes” and excesses of corporate executives are currently hot topics, as our American economy appears to be collapsing from greed and poor executive decision-making.  Pillars of the financial sector including Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, American International Group (AIG), Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac are all stark reminders that any organization, regardless of its size, assets, or reputation, can be virtually bankrupted overnight.  If true of large, well-capitalized organizations, this fact applies even more so to less well-capitalized organizations and small businesses.

As an employee or entrepreneur, are you prepared for the possible loss of your source of income?  What would you do if the unthinkable happened?

It is a sad fact that few people today have savings that can carry them for an extended period.  And so, faced with prospects of losing their jobs or businesses, most people would be compelled to find other employment.  Many would reach the point of desperation, when they would accept employment out of their area of expertise, at significantly lower compensation, or both.

In fact, it has been projected that more than 80% of all people will experience a significant disruption at some point in their careers.  Of course, these disruptions usually occur when those affected least expect it and are most vulnerable.

How, then, might you prepare for such an eventuality?  As in virtually all areas of life, the antidote to potential career disruptions encompasses heightened awareness, planning, and preparation.

First, you must keep abreast of the performance and health of the company at which you are employed.  Ignorance is not blissful when your source of income is its subject.

Second, you must force yourself to put away money for that proverbial rainy day.  If you live long enough, it will almost certainly arrive at some point in your future.

Third, you need to cultivate and maintain a network of contacts relating to your business and career.  Should the day arrive when you are seeking employment, these people will be invaluable.

Fourth, you need to develop and maintain a resume that articulately, effectively positions and promotes you for potential employment.  And, the time to prepare that resume is now!

If you take heed and follow these recommendations, you will have built yourself a productive plan of action and safety net against potential career disruptions.  Then, you won’t find yourself in the position of waiting for “Superman” to rescue you.