Ive been laid off, what do I do now?

Published by The LowCred Guy on Tagged Debt Managment, Financing, Income, Tips

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Sadly enough, the way the world is now, there are very few jobs that are guaranteed to always be there for you. Years ago, people got jobs and planned to work those jobs until retirement. Now a days, not so much. People may go through 3 or more of those "would be lifetime" jobs before retirement age. Its funny how things change, when I was in high school, there was a place that was considered one of those good lifetime jobs. People that graduated from high school and got jobs at that place were considered to be in pretty good shape for the rest of their lives. Since Ive graduated and have lived life a little, that place has proven to not be as stable as it was once was. There has been several large "headline news" lay offs, and me personally, I would only apply for a job there if I was really in need of a job.

Thats not to say that place isn’t still a good place to work…because it is…its just that the stability just isn’t the same as it once was, lay offs have happened to frequently for my comfort.

But if you do get laid off, what do you do?

You have bills that need to be paid. You have obligations. You may have a family: Wife / husband, Kids.

The very first thing you need to do is apply for unemployment benefits.

Many states and cities (in the US) have some sort of unemployment benefits that can help during times of hardship. Some offer a certain amount of money a week. Some offer help with getting more schooling and or training. And signing up with your cities unemployment agency often allows you to search jobs that are listed with that agency so you’ll have a start in your job hunt.

Find out how much money you have on hand or available

When you are laid off, you never know how long being out of work will last so you have to get a foundation of what your working with. Check your savings accounts, see how much you have. If your married, factor in your spouses income. Count up your unemployment benefits, your severance pay (if any) from the job that just laid you off. If you were involved in any 401k plans, find out how much is available to you.

With 401k plans, don’t automatically look at that as available money, you really want to save that to roll over when you get your new job (some jobs do different plans that will require you to cash out). But just remember that the money in your 401k plan is there and have an idea of how much is there just in case you need it.

Basically, just look at all your options and get an idea of how much money you have available. Knowing what you have would make things easier when your trying to figure out what you are going to do.

Find out how long you can manage without a job

Now that you have an idea of all the money that you have available to you, take a good look at your monthly obligations. Add up all your bills, your rent or mortgage, your electric, phone, cable…everything that you usually have to pay out in a month. Don’t forget to factor in food and gas. After you have all your obligations listed (yes make an actual list), figure out how long you can manage with the money that you have figured to be available to you. Don’t start cutting back yet, this is just the a snapshot look right now.

Ok…now cry.

After you finish crying, you need to make a plan of attack, you need to get your bearings, and start making a plan to recover and move on. The first thing you need to do is let the rest of the family know whats going on. Up until now, the only people that should know is your spouse. When you come to the rest of the family, you need to have some sort of confidence that you have things under control. You want the kids to know the situation and that things will have to change. they may even be helpful, there might be things that they may suggest that isn’t important to them an can be dropped. If they are older and have jobs themselves, they may offer to take over the cell phone bill or something that they feel like is theirs more so than yours. But the main thing is let the kids and the rest of the family know that you will be really watching the spending until you get a new job.

Now the cutbacks

Remember that list of monthly obligations that you created? Now go back to that list and figure out which things you could do away with. Do you need that $90 a month Direct TV package? Could you do away with the bi-weekly camping trips in the summer? Do all 5 people in your house really need cell phones? Is it possible to make "t-bone steak Fridays" more like "fried chicken Fridays"? Factor in all the little cutbacks you can think of and figure out how long you can last then. Keep in mind that the cutbacks don’t have to all be done at this moment, you can space them out over time. You don’t want to cut off all the kids cell phone’s only to get a job before the next bill is due. But be honest with yourself and figure out the best way to do things.

Look for employment

All of the things you have done up until now should be things that are done within the first week of being laid off. You have a temporary plan to get by but it doesn’t stop there. You have to now go out and find work again. First thing you should do is update or type up your resume. Keep in mind, that depending on what type of job you’re going after, you may have to have several versions of your resume to cater to different requirements of the jobs your applying for, but for now create a general resume to start.

The first jobs you apply for should be jobs that you think you will like. Write down all the places that you would like to work, get a newspaper and write down all the jobs listed that you like, don’t be too picky, but be somewhat picky. The reason I say this is because, in most states, once you find full time employment again, your unemployment benefits stop. So if you made 70k a year, don’t mess around get a job that only pays 30k a year tops right from the beginning. Depending on how far you can last on what you figured up earlier, you may have a certain time frame that you can afford to be picky and go after a job or position that you indeed want.

After you got that list together, do some searching….find out if they have openings, call them, talk to friends, do whatever you need to do to find out what is available. Adjust your resume to fit the job openings they have and apply for those positions. The places on your list that don’t have any openings listed, still find out the address to their human resources department and mail them a resume with a very nice cover letter.

Keep checking that list, adding to that list, and applying. As the list get empty, lower your standards a bit and add more.

Keep repeating those steps until you get a job. But never act like you got all the time in the world, make sure you have a sense of urgency, and keep your hopes up. Sometimes job hunting can be disappointing and upsetting but you have to stand strong. And if your the man of the house, remember that women are more likely to leave a out of work man when there are money problems than men are to leave a woman. So if you appear to your wife to be getting lazy , there could be even more problems.

Another thing to remember is that you can always do odd jobs that could make a bit of cash. A lot of jobs will teach you skills that will help out around the house, and just because you’re laid off doesn’t mean those skills are gone too. Put an ad in Craigslist.org or your local newspaper classified offering your skills.

The main thing to remember is stay focused, optimistic, but at the same time think realistically, an you’ll be ok.