Beating Unemployment: Strategies for Navigating Tough Economic Times

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs,

00:00:09.180 | where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers.

00:00:12.420 | Today, Jesse, Troy and I sit down

00:00:14.440 | and talk about this tough economy

00:00:16.140 | and its impact on employment

00:00:18.580 | and small businesses who are struggling to survive

00:00:21.740 | because customers' budgets are now more guarded than ever.

00:00:25.420 | We talk about the lessons we've learned

00:00:27.180 | and some key takeaways.

00:00:28.780 | All right, let's get started.

00:00:30.220 | - My dad once said to me,

00:00:33.620 | "Don't ever think you're unreplaceable."

00:00:38.160 | And it seemed like a cold thing to say

00:00:42.180 | because he said that to me during a time

00:00:44.980 | where I was at the company, I was at a peak,

00:00:47.680 | and thinking I'm so valuable.

00:00:50.580 | And I think it was you who said earlier, Troy,

00:00:53.260 | that there is a business side of things

00:00:55.700 | and some things you have control over,

00:00:57.220 | some things you don't.

00:00:58.100 | And some of those factors are dictated

00:00:59.900 | by macroeconomic economics, right?

00:01:02.180 | Which might impact your employment.

00:01:05.180 | And it's a very cold thing to say,

00:01:07.900 | but it helped me separate work life from personal life.

00:01:12.900 | And this is not to say that you're unloyal to a company,

00:01:20.100 | but it's realizing that end of the day,

00:01:21.920 | you are still a number.

00:01:24.100 | And so some of these decisions around employment,

00:01:26.740 | especially in this current economic state,

00:01:29.460 | it's not personal.

00:01:31.700 | And it's hard being the recipient of that.

00:01:34.860 | And I think maybe this is a good time

00:01:36.620 | to maybe shift to dealing with unemployment, right?

00:01:39.660 | 'Cause I've gone through it twice.

00:01:41.340 | There are two periods of my time where I was doing that.

00:01:42.780 | And right now, a lot of people are doing it,

00:01:44.860 | dealing with it, as you mentioned, Jesse, from the pandemic.

00:01:47.860 | My first time was after the agency.

00:01:52.100 | And the question is,

00:01:53.060 | what do you do during your time of employment?

00:01:56.240 | And the complexity multiplies.

00:01:59.260 | Like if you have kids, if you have mortgage,

00:02:01.900 | or if you're in need of health insurance for yourself,

00:02:04.740 | or if you're covering aging parents, right?

00:02:07.180 | So like the complexity and a need for income

00:02:09.740 | just builds and builds and builds.

00:02:11.340 | And that stress and anxiety, it impacts you.

00:02:14.580 | When my first instance of unemployment

00:02:20.820 | after the agency, before Logitech,

00:02:22.580 | my mindset was, I'm gonna hit the ground running.

00:02:26.380 | I'm gonna hit as many jobs as I possibly can.

00:02:28.860 | And that would be similar

00:02:30.260 | to what I would have experienced today, right?

00:02:32.100 | Where it's like, I'm gonna go through all of the,

00:02:35.260 | I'm gonna file unemployment.

00:02:36.180 | You guys have to do that.

00:02:37.580 | It doesn't matter how senior your job is.

00:02:41.180 | The amount you get is based on a percentage

00:02:44.580 | of your last paycheck.

00:02:45.580 | And so if you're a VP,

00:02:47.460 | or if you're an individual contributor,

00:02:49.260 | like file for unemployment.

00:02:51.620 | Now you may get rejected.

00:02:53.860 | In some cases it's happened,

00:02:54.900 | but if you don't apply, then you'll never get it, right?

00:02:59.580 | So I played for unemployment.

00:03:01.500 | I had a mortgage at the time.

00:03:03.540 | So I did was I went through the California state,

00:03:08.500 | the job listings held by the government.

00:03:11.540 | And every day I was doing job searches, right?

00:03:13.220 | And in order to maintain your unemployment status,

00:03:16.540 | you have to provide a log of the proves

00:03:21.300 | that you've been job searching, right?

00:03:22.780 | And so whether it's submitting through your site

00:03:24.020 | or whatnot, you always had to provide a record of that.

00:03:26.340 | And remember at that time,

00:03:28.340 | I had so many random odd jobs.

00:03:31.980 | And it was important because it made me realize

00:03:36.100 | that no job is ever beneath me.

00:03:38.820 | Doesn't matter if I am doing VP level work,

00:03:44.060 | if I'm doing barista work,

00:03:45.700 | nothing is invaluable

00:03:48.980 | if you know what you wanna get out of the experience.

00:03:51.100 | And I think that was a first time work.

00:03:52.780 | Again, coming out of the agency experience,

00:03:55.500 | I'm struggling with my sense of identity.

00:03:57.900 | So I was retrying to build myself.

00:04:00.220 | And so I made it a goal to take every opportunity

00:04:03.780 | and all of them were temporary jobs.

00:04:05.580 | And in one case it was like,

00:04:09.300 | I'm gonna learn how to deal with rejection.

00:04:10.580 | So one of those temp jobs was all around cold calling.

00:04:15.620 | I had a job around, I type fast,

00:04:18.980 | but sometimes at that point, maybe accuracy,

00:04:21.980 | maybe like 80%, let's say.

00:04:24.300 | And I'm much higher now.

00:04:26.140 | But so my goal for that was I had data entry job.

00:04:28.300 | So I was like, my goal is to bang out

00:04:30.580 | however it works per minute

00:04:32.020 | and I'll have like 95% accuracy

00:04:33.940 | 'cause it's a measurable way to show improvement.

00:04:37.620 | I did all these oddball jobs.

00:04:39.540 | I took a lot of volunteer work from nonprofits,

00:04:44.620 | from my local church, wherever it is.

00:04:46.380 | And the whole point of that was

00:04:48.260 | the next time I go into an interview,

00:04:51.380 | the best way for me to help them understand who I am

00:04:55.740 | and who they're trying to hire

00:04:57.820 | is to help them understand my mindset

00:04:59.260 | through this whole thing.

00:05:00.740 | So it's a story of resilience.

00:05:01.860 | It's about being scrappy.

00:05:03.020 | It's around finding purpose in any work

00:05:06.940 | and proving through examples

00:05:08.740 | that I can make meaningful gain

00:05:12.460 | on either skillset building or whatever it is.

00:05:15.460 | And that actually helped me land the contract job

00:05:18.860 | at Logitech because I was able to demonstrate scrappiness.

00:05:22.780 | And at that time, the web team,

00:05:25.140 | they're about to go through a site redesign.

00:05:26.780 | And so I was able to kind of pull that together.

00:05:29.180 | The most recent unemployment I had was a little different

00:05:34.420 | 'cause I was so burnt out from the previous experience

00:05:38.780 | that I just, I gave myself a month

00:05:43.500 | to just recharge and relax, man, honestly.

00:05:46.180 | I knew that the economy was tough

00:05:48.980 | and I was taking a huge risk

00:05:51.140 | by giving myself time to breathe.

00:05:53.820 | But in this instance, I knew that if I couldn't recharge

00:05:58.820 | in all the interviews I do,

00:06:01.780 | they would not get the best version of me.

00:06:04.540 | And thankfully in this scenario,

00:06:07.140 | my wife and I both work.

00:06:08.700 | Now, single-based income out of California,

00:06:12.340 | it would only get us so far.

00:06:14.300 | And so how we processed that was

00:06:16.420 | we looked at our finances between mortgage,

00:06:19.060 | any debts that we owed, unemployment,

00:06:22.540 | and then her income.

00:06:23.420 | And we calculated how much runway we would have.

00:06:26.220 | And of course we ate very conservatively.

00:06:29.100 | So that's how I was able to calculate

00:06:31.140 | I have a month maximum.

00:06:33.820 | After that, I really needed to get myself together.

00:06:36.340 | So that's how I got myself

00:06:38.860 | through this current pandemic unemployment.

00:06:41.300 | Leveraging connections was really, really important.

00:06:46.020 | And actually landing my job at Fortinet,

00:06:49.340 | it was fortuitous because my hiring manager

00:06:53.580 | reached out to me prior to joining A10,

00:06:56.260 | which is my previous job.

00:06:57.140 | So two jobs ago, he reached out to me

00:06:58.300 | and it just didn't line up.

00:07:00.140 | And so I had sent out,

00:07:02.660 | actually this whole podcast actually wouldn't have happened

00:07:04.740 | if I wasn't unemployed.

00:07:05.580 | I'm actually talking about like silver linings.

00:07:07.940 | 'Cause at that time I put out a message on LinkedIn.

00:07:09.660 | Hey, look, I'm unemployed,

00:07:11.220 | but I'm just trying to help people.

00:07:12.460 | So let's have a conversation if you need a sounding board.

00:07:15.660 | So that message resonated with a lot of hiring managers.

00:07:19.860 | And so I put myself out there.

00:07:21.860 | And one of those conversations just happened to be

00:07:23.860 | with my current hiring manager.

00:07:25.420 | And that kind of turned things around.

00:07:27.300 | How about you guys?

00:07:28.140 | Like, what are, you know,

00:07:29.060 | obviously you guys are running your own businesses.

00:07:31.500 | And so there's periods of like hyper growth

00:07:35.540 | and periods of slowdown and you are your own manager.

00:07:38.300 | Hopefully you're a good manager to yourself.

00:07:40.180 | How are you dealing with all of that,

00:07:42.140 | especially with today's climate?

00:07:43.740 | - I mean, there's definitely ebbs and flows.

00:07:49.740 | It's funny, as my own manager,

00:07:56.420 | I'm pretty bad about finding time for business development,

00:08:01.220 | but I've been pretty fortunate that my network just kind of,

00:08:04.140 | when things slow, things tend to come back.

00:08:06.140 | But the one thing I would say, like,

00:08:07.620 | I wish I had, going back earlier in my career,

00:08:10.140 | I had two periods of unemployment.

00:08:11.380 | One was self-induced.

00:08:13.380 | I walked out of a PR agency during the original .com bust,

00:08:18.380 | which was the worst time to walk out

00:08:20.620 | because things were getting really hard for me.

00:08:23.660 | And I was so immature at that point.

00:08:25.540 | I just couldn't, I couldn't deal with it.

00:08:27.580 | And the second was that period I mentioned

00:08:31.620 | where I already had sort of wheels in motion.

00:08:33.580 | But that first period, I wasted a lot of time

00:08:36.140 | basically procrastinating on doing

00:08:39.980 | what I should have been doing every day.

00:08:43.940 | Should have been looking for job opportunities or resumes.

00:08:49.660 | But the one thing I wish, if I could go back now,

00:08:51.700 | I would say schedule two to three things per day

00:08:56.700 | that push you toward finding the next job,

00:09:02.540 | but equally as important, schedule something,

00:09:05.060 | schedule a period of time to do something

00:09:06.780 | that is something you're passionate about,

00:09:11.180 | to sort of give yourself a break,

00:09:14.740 | but also clear your head a little bit.

00:09:18.980 | Like if this were to happen to me today,

00:09:21.380 | that thing would be disc golf.

00:09:22.540 | I'm really into disc golf right now.

00:09:24.740 | And so when my business is slow today,

00:09:29.420 | if I have a day where I don't have a full slate

00:09:31.660 | of jobs to do, then I will go out to the disc golf

00:09:36.620 | and I'll throw some discs.

00:09:37.940 | So I also gave advice recently to a family member

00:09:44.420 | who's trying to make the transitions.

00:09:47.740 | He was kind of unsure of where to start.

00:09:52.580 | And I think the advice was just find one thing per day

00:09:57.540 | to do while you're in your current job

00:10:01.900 | to find the next thing,

00:10:02.740 | which is reach out to somebody in your network

00:10:05.580 | that you haven't connected with for a long time,

00:10:07.980 | or find five jobs online through a search

00:10:13.740 | that you want to apply for,

00:10:14.820 | but then you can apply for them a different day,

00:10:16.780 | but just identify opportunities.

00:10:18.900 | Just do one thing per day.

00:10:20.300 | And I think during unemployment,

00:10:22.540 | if you can mix those two things,

00:10:24.580 | finding time for yourself,

00:10:25.860 | do something that moves you forward.

00:10:29.740 | I think you're going to feel good

00:10:31.220 | about what you did at the end of the day.

00:10:33.260 | - Yeah, I would agree.

00:10:36.580 | I think it's so important to have that balance, right?

00:10:38.780 | To have those things outside of work that fulfill us

00:10:41.580 | and fill the well back up.

00:10:43.420 | And I've had some periods of unemployment.

00:10:46.740 | Ironically, one was I was laid off on my 30th birthday.

00:10:52.260 | It was August 11th, 2001.

00:10:54.740 | And 30 days later,

00:10:55.580 | there's obviously the big terrorist attack.

00:10:58.500 | And I lived in LA at the time,

00:11:00.820 | and there was all this hysteria around the mail.

00:11:04.980 | I don't know if you remember the anthrax scare

00:11:06.700 | and all this stuff.

00:11:07.660 | And so I had been working at the LA Times

00:11:10.740 | for a number of years,

00:11:11.580 | and I got laid off, like I said, in August, 2001.

00:11:15.420 | And it was a while before I found a freelance job.

00:11:21.220 | And I had been freelancing as a copywriter

00:11:24.540 | for an agency doing Hollywood, doing movie taglines.

00:11:29.140 | But I really didn't, and it was a great book,

00:11:31.260 | but I didn't know what to do with it.

00:11:32.820 | I didn't really even know what agencies did.

00:11:35.500 | I just kind of fell into this role

00:11:37.060 | 'cause I had picked up a job editing a literary journal

00:11:40.420 | that happened to be produced by this partner in an agency.

00:11:45.420 | And I had talked my way, argued my way out of that job

00:11:49.660 | because they accepted a couple awards in my name

00:11:52.460 | and didn't tell me about it.

00:11:53.300 | And I got all huffy, and then I never worked for them again.

00:11:56.180 | And so I didn't have that job.

00:11:57.620 | I lost my full-time job.

00:11:59.300 | I didn't really a freelancer at the time,

00:12:01.180 | but I ended up picking up this work

00:12:02.820 | for a company that was another import/export company.

00:12:06.340 | They had me writing campaigns for gift baskets

00:12:09.340 | and a pill that would make you slimmer and tanner

00:12:11.820 | at the same time.

00:12:12.740 | And it was sort of a mess.

00:12:15.540 | This was, but I got an employment for a period of time

00:12:19.500 | just like you described, Tim, is you just have to go out,

00:12:22.700 | you have to report all the jobs you've looked for.

00:12:25.420 | And then if you had any work,

00:12:26.500 | you have to report the hours that you have.

00:12:28.980 | And it's sort of related to what they give you.

00:12:31.060 | And it wasn't a lot of money.

00:12:32.980 | And then we moved, my wife and I moved,

00:12:36.060 | at the time we had yet to be married,

00:12:37.500 | we moved to Santa Cruz where she started attending school.

00:12:40.620 | And it was rough.

00:12:43.660 | I think it was just a matter of taking,

00:12:45.540 | like you said, any job.

00:12:46.540 | I took a job when we moved to Santa Cruz selling coffee.

00:12:49.900 | And this was at the dot-com bust

00:12:52.260 | happened right about that time.

00:12:53.940 | And the, so I was selling condiments like coffee,

00:12:58.940 | not condiments, but coffee, snacks,

00:13:06.100 | and things like that in Silicon Valley

00:13:09.060 | to these office, you know, to offices,

00:13:11.780 | to folks that previously had been good customers

00:13:15.300 | and maybe they had shrunk.

00:13:17.100 | So it was really hard.

00:13:18.660 | I did that for a few years.

00:13:20.020 | And then I got laid off actually from Logitech

00:13:23.100 | on my 40th birthday, about 10 years later in 2011.

00:13:27.900 | And I had, I don't know if you remember,

00:13:30.380 | but they knew CMO was brought in

00:13:32.820 | and they changed the whole structure.

00:13:33.900 | And I had been a writer

00:13:36.220 | and they wanted to convert everybody to brand managers.

00:13:38.820 | And I had recommended a colleague, a friend,

00:13:42.500 | and then he ended up getting a writing job

00:13:46.420 | and being converted into the brand manager.

00:13:49.020 | And I was one of the people that got laid off.

00:13:51.300 | And fortunately there was someone

00:13:54.740 | that was working there at the time, Alex Lopez,

00:13:56.860 | and he ended up sending a bunch of work my way

00:13:59.580 | right after I got laid off and that got us through.

00:14:02.180 | You know, at that point I had a young child

00:14:05.340 | and we didn't yet have a mortgage,

00:14:08.780 | but, you know, we had significant bills.

00:14:10.860 | And so it was a little bit of leaning

00:14:13.140 | on my network to get us through.

00:14:17.340 | And eventually I got a project job with an agency.

00:14:22.340 | And then at some point I got another job.

00:14:25.180 | And then at one point, a few months later,

00:14:26.700 | I had four or five job offers at the same time.

00:14:28.820 | And I ended up picking the one that landed me at the Google.

00:14:31.740 | First time working for an agency

00:14:34.900 | embedded at the Googleplex.

00:14:35.980 | And then what I learned was unemployment is really scary.

00:14:40.180 | And when it first happens, you just,

00:14:41.660 | I just want to go to the bar.

00:14:43.140 | I mean, at the time, that's what I wanted to do.

00:14:45.140 | And, you know, I wanted to run away from it,

00:14:49.020 | from the pain, from the feeling like I wasn't,

00:14:51.420 | I wasn't a value that it didn't matter

00:14:56.500 | all the things I had accomplished.

00:14:57.540 | I really didn't make the cut.

00:14:59.420 | And so I took it very personally,

00:15:01.820 | even though we know business is in most cases not personal.

00:15:05.260 | I do think there's a sort of, you know,

00:15:09.100 | exceptions to that is when you run your own business,

00:15:12.740 | even though it's still business,

00:15:15.380 | it's, if you have a business, I think,

00:15:17.980 | and this is not necessarily the case for me now,

00:15:20.260 | but, and I, and you have employees,

00:15:23.780 | it becomes a little more personal,

00:15:25.220 | especially the times I had a couple of boutique agencies,

00:15:29.220 | I was working all the time

00:15:30.620 | and it became such a big part of who I was

00:15:33.900 | and how I spent my time that, you know,

00:15:36.740 | it sort of bleed into that, you know, personal thing.

00:15:40.260 | And I think there's something actually,

00:15:42.620 | and you see this on LinkedIn,

00:15:43.580 | where people sort of bleed their,

00:15:46.260 | the people call it personal brand,

00:15:47.620 | which I sort of despise this term,

00:15:49.220 | but it kind of bleeds your career into your, right?

00:15:53.500 | You hate that.

00:15:54.340 | That's what the thumbs up is for, right, Troy?

00:15:56.100 | And it's like, it's your personhood,

00:15:58.860 | but it's also your brand.

00:16:00.100 | And they call it a personal brand

00:16:01.340 | and like how you present yourself on LinkedIn

00:16:04.420 | is who you are.

00:16:05.260 | And I think it's a bunch of bullshit,

00:16:07.220 | but there is, I think it's this,

00:16:09.820 | especially when you're, you know,

00:16:12.100 | a lot of cases when you're owning your own business

00:16:14.780 | and maybe you've done so for a long time,

00:16:16.300 | or it's, you know, I haven't been in this situation,

00:16:18.100 | but it's a family business.

00:16:19.580 | I think it becomes a little more personal,

00:16:21.740 | but let's just, you know,

00:16:22.620 | for most of the business I've been in,

00:16:24.420 | corporate or agency, or even freelance,

00:16:26.580 | you know, you're right.

00:16:29.060 | A layoff is not personal in most cases

00:16:31.140 | and almost every, you know,

00:16:32.060 | it's something structural has happened with the business

00:16:33.980 | or the business climate or the market

00:16:35.620 | or the economy or whatever.

00:16:37.340 | And you just happen to be a number on a spreadsheet

00:16:42.340 | that, you know, goes in one column and that happens.

00:16:47.860 | So in terms of,

00:16:52.620 | once I moved into a freelance capacity

00:16:56.500 | and I was consulting with, you know,

00:17:02.060 | more than one client at the same time,

00:17:04.580 | I think my experience, like you've described, Troy,

00:17:07.620 | is it happens in flows.

00:17:09.340 | And I've had some clients for a number of years

00:17:11.100 | and others that have come and gone,

00:17:12.940 | and I've never been completely out of work

00:17:14.940 | and I've often had a little too much.

00:17:17.980 | And it's been more a balance between

00:17:20.580 | what can I successfully take on and still deliver.

00:17:23.500 | But, you know, unemployment could happen.

00:17:26.740 | And Tim, I think I agree with you too.

00:17:28.780 | You become, especially if you have bills,

00:17:31.860 | you just, there's an urgent need

00:17:33.500 | to pick up whatever you can.

00:17:34.700 | And so like my experience,

00:17:37.180 | I picked up a job selling coffee and candy bars to businesses

00:17:41.340 | and I had never done that before,

00:17:42.660 | but that's the job I took just to get through.

00:17:45.660 | - Yeah, I think for anyone,

00:17:49.060 | first of all, thank you for sharing that, you guys.

00:17:50.540 | Like, I totally agree with all of that.

00:17:51.980 | And for anyone who's navigating unemployment right now,

00:17:55.540 | there's five things I would recommend you guys do.

00:17:59.900 | First of all, make sure you're on sites like LinkedIn

00:18:03.020 | or Indeed or Glassdoor, right?

00:18:05.620 | These are job, they have job boards,

00:18:07.980 | they're built for recruiters to find you.

00:18:11.020 | So make sure you're there.

00:18:12.340 | Also know then that the way people find you

00:18:16.580 | is through keywords.

00:18:17.700 | So the whole discipline of search engine optimization,

00:18:21.300 | it applies here.

00:18:23.140 | Know what keywords recruiters are looking for

00:18:26.140 | and make sure you mention something like that

00:18:28.060 | in your LinkedIn profile, for example.

00:18:30.940 | What you don't wanna do is regurgitate

00:18:33.820 | roles and responsibilities as posted in,

00:18:36.820 | just a thumbs up again,

00:18:37.860 | as shown up in a job description and copy and paste that.

00:18:42.320 | That's not what we're looking for.

00:18:43.900 | But you should rewrite your resume

00:18:47.260 | in a way that you show results and your impact

00:18:51.360 | and in your description of those impact,

00:18:53.260 | make sure those keywords are in there, right?

00:18:54.900 | 'Cause that way your profile is discoverable by people.

00:18:57.980 | The next one I would recommend is work your network.

00:19:02.500 | And I don't mean like to be like annoying,

00:19:05.860 | but when you're looking for jobs,

00:19:08.460 | the best way to get in is through job referrals, right?

00:19:12.060 | So start looking at brands that you wanna work for

00:19:15.420 | or look for people that you know

00:19:17.940 | can have a strong referral for you,

00:19:21.700 | look where they're working

00:19:22.520 | and start looking at those job boards.

00:19:24.420 | 'Cause that's the best way to kind of get you in.

00:19:26.820 | For your LinkedIn specifically,

00:19:32.000 | do a post about specifically what you're looking for.

00:19:36.340 | You know, you'll see a lot of people these days,

00:19:38.620 | they do open to work and hey guys,

00:19:40.060 | I'm looking for work, is someone gonna help me?

00:19:42.700 | Maybe here's a job or two.

00:19:44.500 | Do more than that.

00:19:46.020 | Say these are the examples of kind of jobs I'm looking for,

00:19:48.860 | or maybe these are my skill sets.

00:19:50.780 | 'Cause remember, a lot of the people

00:19:52.740 | who are responding to these,

00:19:54.340 | they're not necessarily people directly in your network.

00:19:57.340 | Anytime someone does a thumbs up on your post

00:20:00.140 | or does a comment on it,

00:20:01.780 | that shows up in their feed as well, right?

00:20:04.000 | So now your exposure to the broader audience

00:20:07.820 | to second and third degree connections,

00:20:09.620 | that's how it happens.

00:20:10.740 | So make sure you're very articulate

00:20:12.740 | about what you're looking for.

00:20:14.240 | The next one is get in contact with headhunter agencies.

00:20:19.160 | And in all of my unemployments,

00:20:22.520 | I like when you have a job,

00:20:25.960 | their office often reaching out to you, right?

00:20:28.120 | Whether you're a manager

00:20:29.500 | and they're trying to offer their services to you,

00:20:31.480 | or they're trying to see if you're available.

00:20:33.920 | Now that you're available,

00:20:35.460 | make sure they know you're aware.

00:20:36.780 | And so what they need is a concise description

00:20:39.400 | of what you can do.

00:20:40.880 | So a cover letter is often helpful and your resume,

00:20:44.480 | but get yourself in their system.

00:20:46.640 | And so you're an employable resource for them.

00:20:51.380 | And the last one is gonna sound a little silly.

00:20:53.580 | It's around controlling your budget.

00:20:55.780 | I see a lot of, right now,

00:20:58.940 | if you had the fortune of being laid off with severance,

00:21:03.940 | your first reaction could be like,

00:21:06.900 | hey, I'm gonna take the month off,

00:21:08.660 | like I mentioned earlier, right?

00:21:09.500 | I'm gonna take this month off, it's gonna be for me.

00:21:10.700 | I'm gonna travel or whatnot.

00:21:12.140 | This economy is tough.

00:21:15.000 | So every dollar you sink into the luxury of a vacation,

00:21:19.060 | for example, just know that that could potentially

00:21:22.820 | shorten your duration of what you can be unemployed

00:21:26.660 | for finances.

00:21:27.500 | So just budget accordingly.

00:21:30.020 | I can't eat oatmeal to this day

00:21:32.940 | because the first time I was unemployed,

00:21:35.400 | I'd made a decision to,

00:21:37.240 | I think my daily budget allowance for food was five to $10.

00:21:41.580 | Another thumbs up.

00:21:43.320 | Thank you, Zoom.

00:21:44.960 | And what that meant was I wasn't,

00:21:47.360 | all I could do was sugar and salt.

00:21:49.380 | I couldn't put toppings, I couldn't afford fruit,

00:21:52.340 | but you guys, like spending like $15 a week on food,

00:21:56.020 | you stretch your fences really far.

00:21:57.700 | That's also why I can't eat anymore.

00:21:58.860 | Also, I'd save money aside for a wedding ring

00:22:03.140 | and I promised myself I wouldn't dip into that.

00:22:06.020 | And so I made extreme cuts in other areas of my life.

00:22:08.900 | I did that.

00:22:10.340 | So those are the top things I would recommend.

00:22:12.120 | Now, right now, AI is already upon us.

00:22:14.780 | And so if you, you mentioned, Troy,

00:22:17.480 | that like take this time every day

00:22:19.800 | to do something meaningful.

00:22:22.060 | If you're gonna do something meaningful, learn about AI.

00:22:26.120 | Could be the tools, understand the landscape,

00:22:28.280 | maybe find a way for it to help productivity.

00:22:30.680 | OpenAI, they just announced like ChatGPT 4.0.

00:22:35.360 | It looks fantastic, you guys.

00:22:37.060 | As a matter of fact, I can see now

00:22:40.120 | certain job categories getting displaced as well

00:22:42.880 | due to their ability to visually identify, read,

00:22:45.360 | and just provide meaningful insights

00:22:49.700 | that a translator, for example, would be able to do.

00:22:52.400 | And so that's, and Google at I/O this week,

00:22:56.320 | they also announced a lot of changes as well.

00:22:57.680 | So just be familiar with that

00:23:00.180 | because as you're going into these interviews,

00:23:03.660 | being able to tell your story

00:23:06.880 | and having them understand who you are

00:23:08.520 | as an individual is important,

00:23:10.480 | but also knowing that you're aware of the top trends

00:23:13.320 | just allows you to be more future-proof

00:23:15.960 | in terms of your marketability.

00:23:17.960 | So make sure you save some time to do that

00:23:19.560 | while you're decompressing

00:23:21.340 | during this time of unemployment.

00:23:23.000 | - I would add to that,

00:23:26.760 | that if there are particular topics

00:23:31.000 | that are adjacent to the kind of work you wanna do

00:23:34.920 | that you're passionate about,

00:23:36.220 | write about those topics as well.

00:23:39.120 | And not just, Jesse, by the way, is a master at this.

00:23:43.440 | If you wanna look at his LinkedIn profile,

00:23:44.960 | he's really good at taking a topic

00:23:48.520 | that relates to his work and my work as well

00:23:51.880 | and posting about it.

00:23:54.240 | But yeah, write about those topics on LinkedIn

00:23:56.040 | 'cause it's a great way to get noticed

00:23:59.080 | when you showcase your expertise and passion

00:24:01.780 | for a particular product or a particular topic.

00:24:08.480 | - Yeah, there was a designer who I was kind of mentoring

00:24:12.720 | during this time of unemployment,

00:24:14.040 | and his specialty was a very specific illustration style.

00:24:19.040 | And what I told him was like, you know what,

00:24:23.960 | while you're looking for jobs,

00:24:25.200 | start showcasing your work.

00:24:27.360 | And not just showcasing the work,

00:24:29.800 | but the in-progress work.

00:24:31.840 | I think that's more fascinating, right?

00:24:33.700 | So if you look at just end product,

00:24:36.800 | then it's very subjective on whether you like it or not.

00:24:40.520 | But how you deconstruct or approach a design problem

00:24:44.060 | to arrive at your solution

00:24:45.400 | and kind of talk about the tools you're using

00:24:47.160 | or methodologies or inspiration,

00:24:49.920 | that gives someone who doesn't know anything about you

00:24:52.640 | context of how you operate and work, right?

00:24:54.640 | And then more, and again, this takes effort and time.

00:24:57.000 | And in this context,

00:24:58.080 | I'm thinking specifically about LinkedIn,

00:24:59.960 | but you're totally right, Troy,

00:25:01.340 | like putting yourself out there,

00:25:03.120 | having people understand who you are,

00:25:04.920 | knowing your point of view,

00:25:06.680 | and then being proactive on other people's posts and feeds,

00:25:10.440 | all that does is increase your visibility

00:25:12.200 | to people who are not number one

00:25:14.440 | direct connections of yours.

00:25:15.480 | And that just helps improve your reach.

00:25:17.480 | - And I also add in terms of,

00:25:20.540 | thanks Troy for the nod to,

00:25:25.900 | at least one person's reading my posts.

00:25:28.600 | And there it is, the fireworks.

00:25:31.360 | Why do you, do I get those too?

00:25:32.960 | No, do it, it's not doing it.

00:25:36.380 | Okay, I was gonna say the other thing,

00:25:40.300 | the other interesting thing about,

00:25:41.760 | or Avenue and LinkedIn that is available is,

00:25:45.500 | there's all these people that are experts

00:25:47.280 | and many of them are very willing to talk to you

00:25:49.560 | about how they get there.

00:25:51.520 | And so one of the things that I've done

00:25:53.440 | is not only be more active in terms of posting stuff,

00:25:55.900 | but, and some of that's been very gratifying.

00:25:58.440 | And sometimes folks reach out with very,

00:26:02.520 | for me, it's very inspirational

00:26:03.640 | 'cause they've been touched by things I've shared.

00:26:06.100 | But people are often very generous

00:26:09.060 | about sharing their expertise.

00:26:12.420 | And just, if you're able to connect with someone

00:26:14.780 | that has some more experience or talent or whatever,

00:26:18.060 | and you wanna learn,

00:26:19.420 | I think some folks are very eager to share.

00:26:21.900 | And it's this social media platform,

00:26:24.580 | even though it's a professional network.

00:26:26.900 | And I think there's a,

00:26:28.520 | it's probably underutilized feature of the site

00:26:33.460 | is that if you're connected with somebody,

00:26:34.840 | just message them and say,

00:26:35.680 | "Hey, I saw you posted about this.

00:26:37.980 | "It was amazing.

00:26:38.980 | "I'd love to ask you a few questions

00:26:40.500 | "or take you to a cup of virtual coffee or whatever."

00:26:45.160 | I think that's very helpful.

00:26:47.280 | - I wanna add something to that too.

00:26:50.040 | I feel like I see an alarming number

00:26:52.840 | of new professional coaches

00:26:56.160 | that are out there that charge people.

00:26:58.620 | I just wanna say that there's a lot of people

00:27:00.160 | that would be happy to help you

00:27:02.700 | and offer advice that don't charge.

00:27:06.700 | I think all three,

00:27:09.100 | my assumption is all three of us

00:27:10.460 | would sort of fall into that camp.

00:27:12.940 | Yeah, so there's a lot of advice out there

00:27:17.380 | that you don't wanna spend money for.

00:27:19.920 | And frankly, I bet a lot of the free advice

00:27:21.940 | would be better than a lot of the paid advice.

00:27:24.820 | - I totally agree.

00:27:25.900 | I think the hardest part about this for a lot of people

00:27:29.100 | is embracing your own vulnerability

00:27:30.860 | and know that that could be the key

00:27:33.980 | to unlocking everything for you.

00:27:36.340 | The less guarded you become

00:27:38.380 | allows you to be more true

00:27:40.500 | in terms of articulating what it is

00:27:42.300 | that you really, really need.

00:27:44.340 | And so when you put yourself out there saying,

00:27:46.340 | "Hey, look, I'm looking for advisement

00:27:48.220 | "on this very specific thing or this career path.

00:27:50.840 | "I'm looking for a mentor who can help me

00:27:52.820 | "solve a very specific thing."

00:27:55.500 | The more you're able to articulate that,

00:27:57.160 | the more you'll be able to find the right feedback

00:27:59.540 | as opposed to getting someone who's very generic, right?

00:28:01.980 | And you might, again, to your point,

00:28:03.060 | you might find out that your whole network

00:28:04.780 | is very empathetic towards your situation

00:28:06.300 | and that might lead itself to connections

00:28:08.780 | to other people as well.

00:28:09.780 | And so definitely don't underestimate the power of LinkedIn.

00:28:13.880 | - Hey guys, thanks again for watching and listening.

00:28:17.440 | Next week, we'll be talking about dealing

00:28:19.340 | with the feeling of being in over your head.

00:28:21.660 | So make sure you hit like, subscribe

00:28:23.620 | and hit the notification bell

00:28:24.940 | so you don't miss the episode.

00:28:26.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Beating Unemployment: Strategies for Navigating Tough Economic Times

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