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Pink Slip Survival Plan

Losing your job? What you need to know now.

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  • Posted By: LAsucks @ 10/07/2008 5:16:53 PM

    While this article is a helpful step-by-step and has a lot of helpful advice (it does make a difference to get references prior to leaving the firm), the last step was kinda laughable. For those of us who have been in long-term unemployment or serious financial situations, there are no emergency funds, stocks, or retirement plans to cash in on. Health insurance benefits? What jobs hand these out? Do you have to have a Ph. D., or are you 35 with some equity? I'm 23, female, white, I've been working since I was out of college, two degrees, and when I lost my job, the government denied me unemployment.

    The fact of the matter is that only a small percentage of jobs, especially now, have living wages, benefits, and the kind of employment we were used to seeing our dads have, our parents have, and there isn't a plan that you can make to cover up for the financial hits of being without an income stream for any extended period of time. It's just too expensive in this country, and no one wants things to get cheaper.

    • Posted By: Floretta @ 10/23/2008 12:08:08 PM

      23, college educated, living in LA and can't find a job? Puh-leeze, try 56, also college educated (translation: OVERqualified for $9 an hour jobs, both of them) and living in a small town with no transportation.

  • Posted By: melpol @ 10/13/2008 8:00:52 AM


    The big secret is out. Politicians and the media were hiding the fact that American households have a net worth of over 56 trillion dollars. That is more than half the household wealth of the world. Those statistics come from the Federal reserve Flow of Funds Summary Statistics Second Quarter 2008. If there was a way to get the hoarders of those bucks to go on a long shopping spree the recession in the U.S. would quickly end. But our politicians fear talking to those idle saving account owners and their potential to stimulate our economy, they would rather increase the national debt than anger millions of cheap voters. Consumer spending determines the health of the economy not inflationary government handouts. Until some miserly Americans start digging into their over loaded bank accounts and start spending money our recession will continue indefinitely.


  • Posted By: emmarcee @ 10/11/2008 6:35:12 AM

    Who played the financial markets to crash down for Obama's favor? THE TIMING WAS VERY CRITICAL. Right when Mccain was in the lead. How many "international " investors were involved? who is bent to make Barack Husein Obama the POTUS? fIRST THEY PLAYED THE energy crisis. WE beat them. Then they withdrew their holdings and support for our fianancial system. "AMERICA had it coming". WE entertained all these back stabbers who were more than ready to pull the money away from wall street market. All so legally. Govt had to step in to stop the short sale of uSA. YOu liberals who play with antiamerican terrorist coutries, we will let you know you also hold the other end of this stick.

  • Posted By: melpol @ 10/09/2008 7:36:26 PM

    I have lost everything including my live in girlfriend. My portfolio was worth over three million dollars only four years ago---now it is worthless. My creditors have been hounding me day and night and I had to disconnect my phone service in order to get some sleep. All I am left with is savings of less than 75 hundred dollars. I blame my stock broker for advising me to invest all my hard earned money in the auto industry and even my car needs a new transmission. Instead of me weeping I have started over again by mopping floors in the local fast food restaurant. We all learn from experience and what I learned is to keep my money under the mattress.

  • Posted By: melpol @ 10/09/2008 7:35:56 PM

    I have lost everything including my live in girlfriend. My portfolio was worth over three million dollars only four years ago---now it is worthless. My creditors have been hounding me day and night and I had to disconnect my phone service in order to get some sleep. All I am left with is savings of less than 75 hundred dollars. I blame my stock broker for advising me to invest all my hard earned money in the auto industry and even my car needs a new transmission. Instead of me weeping I have started over again by mopping floors in the local fast food restaurant. We all learn from experience and what I learned is to keep my money under the mattress.

  • Posted By: LLiving10 @ 10/08/2008 2:07:40 PM

    I got some really nice help here... www.CareerSitesCompany.com
    So many other sites are useless. There plenty of jobs, just need to become a very good job seekers, since nothing will just fall into your lap. I'm guessing most new job seekers aren't that good at it.

  • Posted By: red2dye4 @ 10/08/2008 3:41:52 AM

    Unemployment benefits are a joke! Especially here in CA. They even threatened to terminate my benefits unless I saw one of their "career counselors" the career counselors just tell you what you already know...it's tough to get a job out there. Benefits are a thing of the past. Most employers want you to have a degree, pay you $10 an hour, commute 20 miles through rush hour traffic, and you don't get any benefits. If you were lucky enough to have health insurance through your previous employer, your COBRA premiums will most likely take most of your unemployment check. Don't bother to try and get an individual plan if you even had a yeast infection or worse in the last 10 years, you'll either be denied, or have to pay outrageous premiums. Temp agencies are not much better. You test for like 6 hours on a PC, usually testing skills that you never had to use in a previous job, then they say they'll call you if something comes up, you can't win!

  • Posted By: phiomalibumalibu @ 10/08/2008 12:22:46 AM

    We have shipped 10 million jobs to India during the last 10 years. They started billing out at $25 an hour, about half of what americans were being paid. Now they are billing out at $70/hour and more!!

    Now the same american companies who did this will suffer, because there is no one with money to buy their goods or watch their movies. Unfortunately, it has caused the most suffering amongst the common man, who now has lost his home.

  • Posted By: vinmano @ 10/07/2008 8:10:50 PM

    Chear up America ,change we can believe in is comming to the U.S.S.A> united socialist states of America GO OBAMA

  • Posted By: vinmano @ 10/07/2008 8:08:25 PM

    chear up America, change is comming to the U.S.S.A. united socialist states of America ,GO OBAMA

  • Posted By: lmp15 @ 10/07/2008 7:27:04 PM

    if you were making ten bucks and hour in a factory like my mom - take your unemployment checks and take a little break as well. No need to rush back to the industry starting at $8 an hour -- just saying.

  • Posted By: 7dollars @ 10/07/2008 7:14:39 PM

    america deserves 4 more of republicans...

    any country that elects a creep like bush deserve 4 more years of the same.

    i hope america elects mc cain / palin...

    i'll laugh!....ha,ha,ha.

  • Posted By: cajademierda @ 10/07/2008 6:04:24 PM

    "While that sounds self-serving coming from a recruiter, randomly sending your resume and responding to blind ads is likely to get it placed in the HR databases of companies for which you might want to work. When that happens, even if an employment professional has contacts at that company or is trying to fill your dream job there, he or she can't represent you because you've already made contact with that company. "

    I'm not buying that. If that was true, that would mean companies actually look through their resume database for every hire, which God knows they don't. Secondly, third party recruiters don't represent anyone, they aren't sports agents, they just bring a hiring manager candidates for a job. If they bring the hiring manager my resume, but its already in the company's database and because of that the recruiter doesn't get paid, who cares? It doesn't affect me any as the manager already received my resume plus the recommendation from the third party recruiter. Since the third party recruiter doesn't have access to the company's resume database, its not like they can refuse to give my resume to the manager because its already on there anyway. Thirdly, this statement leads someone to rely on recruiters to do the job search for them which is a very bad idea. Most good companies do their own recruiting anyway and most job requisitions are on their website. Only jobs which are particularily difficult to fill get any treatment beyond a website posting, company reps at a career fair, or the occasional newpaper ad.

  • Posted By: cajademierda @ 10/07/2008 6:03:29 PM

    "While that sounds self-serving coming from a recruiter, randomly sending your resume and responding to blind ads is likely to get it placed in the HR databases of companies for which you might want to work. When that happens, even if an employment professional has contacts at that company or is trying to fill your dream job there, he or she can't represent you because you've already made contact with that company. "

    I'm not buying that. If that was true, that would mean companies actually look through their resume database for every hire, which God knows they don't. Secondly, third party recruiters don't represent anyone, they aren't sports agents, they just bring a hiring manager candidates for a job. If they bring the hiring manager my resume, but its already in the company's database and because of that the recruiter doesn't get paid, who cares? It doesn't affect me any as the manager already received my resume plus the recommendation from the third party recruiter. Since the third party recruiter doesn't have access to the company's resume database, its not like they can refuse to give my resume to the manager because its already on there anyway. Thirdly, this statement leads someone to rely on recruiters to do the job search for them which is a very bad idea. Most good companies do their own recruiting anyway and most job requisitions are on their website. Only jobs which are particularily difficult to fill get any treatment beyond a website posting, company reps at a career fair, or the occasional newpaper ad.

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