Bob’s letter:

My Kindle broke.

I was searching on a word and I noticed the 5-way switch felt funny, turned out it was broken…  But I’d already finished my book, Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life”.

Although not the best-written book, and despite his self-deprecation, Steve was seemingly shtupping every desirable woman extant, the insight into careers was utterly fascinating.

His motivation was his father.  Steve needed to prove himself to his distant dad.  He needed something to call his own.  And it took him two decades to achieve this.

Yes, most people believe the first appearance on late night TV breaks you.  But that’s not the case.  Steve was eventually demoted from Johnny, only appearing with guest hosts until a breakout review from a small club appearance in Florida, whereupon he got another chance with the main man (because a friend at the show was championing him, without allies, you’re nowhere.)

Steve’s story is “Outliers” in action.  Steve put in his 10,000 hours at Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm.  He got to experiment, he got to be bad.  That’s one of the problems with the insta-stars of today, they’ve got no chance to be bad.  So they’re surrounded by production live, they sing to hard drive, when what we’re really looking for is some element of humanity, of connection, of control.  I’ve never seen anyone put down a heckler as well as Paul McCartney did at Amoeba.  He knew exactly when to bite back, how to silence the intruder and keep the audience on his side.  You learn this via thousands of appearances.

One night the audience is rapturous.

The next night there’s silence.

Is it you?  Do you need to adjust the act?

Most acts today are finalized before they go on the road.  They can’t be fixed, they can’t be changed in light of human response.  And without that response, there is no show.

After Knott’s, Steve wrote for television.  Until he realized if he didn’t quit right away, didn’t give his standup a chance, his opportunity for success would evaporate.

So Steve quit, and went on the road.  And lost money.  He got no traction as an opening act so he decided to headline.  Where he made even less money, even though the people were there to see him alone.

But then there was an accident.

That’s how creativity works.  Oftentimes not premeditated, you do something in a situation that insures your success.

He was performing in a room with no stage exit.  He was done, but the audience wouldn’t leave.  When he escaped through the side door, they followed him.

Steve became famous for this, leading his audience out on adventures.  It wasn’t planned in advance, it was a serendipitous moment on the road.

But that doesn’t mean Steve didn’t plan, didn’t analyze his act.

We hear today people will do anything to make it.  But what exactly is that anything?  Change your name, sleep with the director, sell out to corporations?  In other words, are you willing to work on your creativity, your act, constantly refining and reinventing it until the audience, after tons of your own hard work, responds?

Steve decided to invent a new kind of comedy.  Where the punch lines were not defined.

Imagine this.  It’s like a band successfully playing covers and then starting over playing music no one has ever heard before, that most people don’t like.

But by being so different, you’re unique, you’re unchallenged by competitors, you can pave your own way.  If you’re willing to believe in yourself, if you’re willing to put in the effort.

Speak with a coder.  He doesn’t sit down and write iTunes or iOS 4 the first time out.  He learns the language he pays his dues, he makes his mistakes…and the best software triumphs.  Why would fresh-faced beauties believe that just by showing up they can make it in the entertainment world.  Huh?

Eventually Steve got sick of his own act.  It became stale.  He had to move on.  In other words, Chris Isaak never wrote another “Wicked Game”, nothing like it.  Are you willing to try something new, or do you just want to repeat what you’ve done before?

Steve junked standup and went into movies.  He loved the collaboration after working alone.  He wrote a play.  And never looked back at where he came from until decades later, when he wrote this book.

People are complicated.  Our motivations are multifarious.  Success is elusive.  You can try, but you’re gonna hit a lot of blind alleys.  Your one big break will probably be cumulative, a result of years of hard work that pay off in that one performance that puts you over, years after you thought you should make it, after multiple late night soliloquies wherein you decided to give up.

But those who last soldier on.  They know that it’s not only hard work, but a constant exploration of their act, a constant reevaluation, a constant seeking for personal satisfaction that ends up in career fulfillment.

P.S.  They say I’ll get a replacement Kindle tomorrow.  On to the next book!

–
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
–
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
–
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

I thought of freelancing, at first, as a consolation prize for not getting a job. But then I realized freelancing IS a job, and it can provide you with a living. Everyone needs creatives, it turns out, it’s just that no one wants them in their offices cramping their suit-y style more than once per week. Which works just fine for us.

Recently I had the internet pleasure of emailing with a REAL LIFE freelancer, Erin O’Neil. (Ok, full disclosure: we graduated from the same MFA program, though I had never met her before. A friend of mine hooked me up with her so I could ask her some questions, mostly for selfish how-do-I-do-this reasons, but then I realized it would be unfair to keep these insights to myself. I am just SOOOOOO selfless.)

Erin has done all kinds of impressive things that would make me give her money to write things for me if I were a person that works for a place that handed out money to talented writers. Check out her website to get super impressed, and read this interview with her to get mega-super impressed.

(NOTE TO READERS: if you sell your creative skills, freelance or otherwise, please at least read Erin’s answer to the last question I asked her.)

Why freelancing over a “normal” job?

For me, freelancing wasn’t necessary the end goal, but my personal circumstances (and desire to continue working in writing and publishing) led me to it, slightly by accident.

First of all, I was a little older when I came back to school to get my MFA. I had already published a number of pieces in markets including ELLE Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun Times, The Red Eye, etc. I’d also worked in-house as an editorial assistant at SPACE Magazine, and been a staff reporter for the San Clemente Times, so I’d had a decent journalism/writing background heading to school. Having that background opened a number of doors for me in school, and after.

During school, I took advantage of my time to write as much as I could, and also to make connections with people I found to be intelligent, talented writers who I believed had the discipline and passion to make a career out of this nutty life of writing. Doing so, and working with fabulous mentors (like Anne Calcagno, James McManus and Mary Cross) also helped me start to think about the markets I would want to place my work in and possible careers, outside of the arts, where I could apply my writing talent/interest.

I had done a little editing and proofreading for the magazine I had worked for in California, and combined with a personal recommendation from a dear friend, I got my first freelancing job at an event-based marketing company, editing Request For Proposals (RFPs). I had never worked in the business world before, and had never heard of an RFP before I got my “test” job, but once I had successfully proven my ability to proofread and edit, I was able to get a regular freelancing job out of that, and branch out to additional clients with similar needs.

After grad school, I got married and moved to southeastern Virginia to support my husband’s career (and his much more substantial salary and health benefits). Doing so, however, was tantamount to career suicide in anything but freelancing, which made my decision to freelance for me.

What was the process of building your business like?

I’ve always been a huge believer in hard work, professionalism and quality presentation (with a little luck). Those qualities will take pretty much anyone where they want to go in life. So, to display my professionalism, my first goal was to become a professional. In addition to continuing to write and submit my work to literary journals, magazines and newspapers, I also put together a polished portfolio documenting my work, so clients could review it and see my writing for themselves.

Additionally, I created a professional website (www.erinponeill.com). It’s still not what I’d call “finished” but it’s a solid work in progress that has garnered me a number of clients, and it serves its function for its cost effectiveness.

Once I had the website and had all my emails forwarded from a professional email address (erin@erinponeill.com), I developed business cards, which I passed out like candy to anyone who would take them. Finally, I spent a lot of time online checking out opportunities on job boards, professional organization sites, and general market trends informational pages.

How do you find clients?

I’m a member of a number of professional organizations (Mediabistro, Chicago Women in Publishing (CWIP), Avantguild…) and many of them offer regular newsletters, email digests and networking evenings to meet with other professionals in the field. There are also, inevitably, headhunters and people looking to hire freelancers at these events and on these sites, which can be a great pool to tap into when looking for business.

Avantguild has a fabulous job board that really rivals elance.com, idealist.com, etc. I’ve also garnered clients and business through my LinkedIn profile and my Facebook page. Never underestimate the power of social networking these days. The final, dirty secret of finding clients, is that the best way to find clients is by word of mouth and personal recommendations. Turning in quality work, on-deadline and keeping positive lines of communication open with clients can only open additional doors in the future.

How do you deal with benefits usually provided by employers, like health insurance?

Yeah… about that. I don’t know if I’m the person to answer this question. The truth is, I love my husband desperately, entirely, and was engaged to him before I finished school… but the way we chose our wedding date was directly related to when my student insurance expired. I was married within two days. So, my first recommendation is to get married. I kid..I kid.

Well, I kind of kid, but I’m kind of serious, too. The number one reason I had to freelance, and conversely, had the ability to freelance, was that I married someone with a steady income and stellar benefits. With that said, I have a number of friends who are single, or married to uninsured people, and insurance is hands down, the hardest part of it (in my opinion).

I have heard that there are professional organizations (maybe IWOC, but I would check before quoting me on that) that offer discounted group rates for private insurance for freelancers, but frankly, I don’t personally have any better advice than to find yourself a nice Marine and marry him.

(NOTE TO READERS: I’ll be covering the insurance issue next week.)

How do you handle your taxes? The freelance tax looks NUTS.

The freelance tax is nuts. And it sucks. And, again, in my experience, the last person who should be doing complicated mathematic equations is a writer. And particularly, me.

So, I will say, proudly, I pay an accountant. I have an accountant in Virginia, who I love, who met with me, helped me solidify my business plan, set up quarterly filing paperwork, and helps me file annually as well. He has also coached me through the beginning steps of incorporating myself, to get out of the freelance tax, but of course then I have a whole new tax code and set of bookkeeping laws to learn. Even with an accountant, I find the task of tracking expenses, mileage, supplies, subscriptions, and all the other, lovely tax deductible items, exhausting. I also find billing and collections to be extremely time-consuming and stressful. But, both are a necessity (as is keeping a record of everything for 7 years), so I do it. And it’s painful.

I do my best, am always honest, and, my personal advice is, when in doubt, underestimate your deductions and be honest with your income. Better to lose a few dollars here or there than risk having the IRS audit you.

How do you budget your time?

Ahhh….again, am I really who you want to ask? Basically there are two cardinal rules for freelancing/working from home: 1) No daytime television and 2) What doesn’t get done during the workday/work week has to get done after the workday/work week.

One of the best perks of freelancing is that things like grocery shopping, gym visits, doctor appointments and post office trips are often quick, breezy and easy. And you can wear pajamas or workout clothes all day long, and no one’s the wiser.

One of the downsides to freelancing is that you never are really off the clock, and I’m constantly thinking about what I could be/should be doing, even on my “off time”. It helps to motivate me, during the 9-5 workday, to remember that just because I can do errands from 8-12 on a Wednesday, doesn’t mean that I should. By doing so, I’ve necessitated working from 12-8, which really doesn’t sound as glamorous as sleeping in and hitting the gym a little later does, initially. Reminding yourself that freelancing is a job and that, frankly, I find it to be harder than working 9-5 in an office, keeps me on my toes and generally helps me budget my time.

Another trick is to utilize Google calendars obsessively. I schedule every half hour of my day when I have multiple projects going and set alarms for when I should be starting and ending stages of each project. I particularly love Google calendar, because if I’ve scheduled a phone interview for 2:00pm on Tuesday, and the interviewee has to reschedule, at the last minute, for Friday and 10am, I can just drag the appointment (including all the notes and info I’ve filed it with) over to the new correct date and time without any extra effort. It also helps me to put long-term things I should be working on schedule on different days, knowing that I can move them around based on how my week is going. For example, if I have to re-write an article within the next two weeks, I’ll schedule it for a day early in the first week when I don’t have as many projects. If work picks up, I keep pushing it back on my calendar, so the alert keeps coming up until I complete the task. It helps me keep an eye on what I have coming up and gives me a sense of completion when I stop seeing the same alarm over and over again. Is this way too much detail?

(NOTE TO READERS: I love this detail, because, um, you know how I feel about RSS feeds, right? Well… I believe I can feel that way about google calendar now. I love you google calendar. kissy kissy.)

Do you have any advice for navigating relationships with clients?

Be nice, be grateful, be professional. That’s really it. Remember that you need them as much, if not more, than they need you. Always be polite, appreciative and provide quality work, on time.

How do you negotiate fees?

Ahh, the fun part. Well, I have reached a point in my career (I’ve been freelancing for six years) where I have pretty standard rates (by the hour, by the word) that I advise my clients of when we begin talking. With that said, things are always negotiable. I’ve seen a trend in the industry, as of late, to pay flat rates for pieces with word-count “targets” and not to pay by the word. That doesn’t upset me, as long as the fee is fair. I was a staff writer for a website for military spouses for a few years, and they paid me a standard rate for a set-length article, twice a month. Because I felt that it calculated to a fair, per word price, overall, it really wasn’t a problem, and in many ways, encouraged better writing with more flexibility since no one was trying to pinch pennies and over-hyphenate words.

The one thing I would say to any new writer out there is, remember this is a job. It is not a hobby.

The difference between a professional and an amateur is getting paid, and by undervaluing you work, you demean yourself, your product and all of our business. Nothing frustrates me more than hearing about talented writers giving their work away for free, or not reading the fine print.

I recently wrote a piece for a start-up home magazine that was incredibly unscrupulous with its contract negotiation and its fees. I will never work for them again, even to pay the mortgage. Just make sure that you never lose sight of the fact that this is a profession, and if you were a roofer, you wouldn’t put a roof on a house for free just because you liked doing it, right? Respect yourself, ask for a fair price, based on your experience and the assignment, and provide quality material that warrants that price. It’s the best way to do business.

Thanks Erin!

Here’s a story:

I once had a job as a labor organizer. It’s true. It was a hard job and it made me want to drive my car into one of those Pittsburgh rivers. I didn’t care which one. There were many opportunities. Anyway, so one day I was totally unmotivated, sitting in a hotel room in the awful town of Huntingdon, PA, waiting for anything to happen, making phone calls to nursing home workers who largely thought the union was evil and hated us. It was hard to get motivated. And then I remembered what this super old union organizer lady told me once when I was doing the same job in Detroit just a few years earlier. She said “If you don’t wear lipstick when you make the calls, people can tell. You sound less put together. Less motivated.” She said it in a super southern accent with a ten inch cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth, but she said something like that. And I was thinking about that today, as I have a ton of shit on my plate that I need to do. That maybe a little bit of lipstick could help me get motivated.

Now, I generally don’t wear lipstick, but I do have a list of things that must be taken care of in order for me to feel like I have my shit together. That very same list can make me feel presentable to the world, even though, as a copywriter and normal writer, I mostly sit in my home office typing and don’t see anyone or talk to anyone until my husband gets home at 5:30. That’s less depressing than it sounds, I assure you.

I think that old lady was right, that you have to put on a little proverbial lipstick in order to feel like you’ve got it together enough to get anything done. You’ve got to do it yourself. You can’t wait for a muse if you’re trying to reach some sort of goal, whether it’s get a resume out to someone, write a story, prepare for a reading, finish a drawing, painting, and then all that other stuff that non-creatives do, which I guess is get paid.

I present to you my check list. Some of it is pathetic. Maybe you should make your own. I am pretty sure mine won’t line up with your life exactly.

1. Did I have coffee?

2. Did I eat something?

3. Did I take my medication? (shut up)

4. Did I shower?

5. Did I brush my teeth?

6. Is the room I am in cleaned up a little at least?

7. Is my keyboard free of cat hair?

And if those things are taken care of, here are some of the EXTRAS steps I often take:

1. Listen to Curtis Mayfield’s “move on up.”

Move on up

2. Change scenery.

3. Pretend Facebook doesn’t exist. It’s not all that interesting anyway. Right?

4. Get out an egg timer and make myself work for 30 minutes straight and then take a ten minute break to do something else and then do it again.

5. Listen to My Sharona. (shut up)

My Sharona

6. Stop reading blogs about motivation.

7. Put on some mascara. Mascara is to me what lipstick was to the old union lady.

8. Stop blogging.

The canned introduction and the ending that is boring as hell thanking them in advance for their time blah blah–I doubt it’s efficacy. Sure, I’ve gotten interviews with it, but I haven’t gotten jobs. In the ad for my current indie contractor job [1] (I like saying “indie” because it makes me think I’m cool, like the copywriting version of Pavement), they wrote something like “must be fun to work with.”

So, after resigning to my personal, perpetual unemployment crisis, after acknowledging that this is my plight and the plight of so many others, after seeing that there is no way out, I gave up on cover letters. I invested less time. I decided not to read them 800 times before I hit the SEND button. I adopted a new strategy: I saw a job, hammered out a cover letter, attached my resume (which is tailored to writing and editing jobs), and I sent it off thinking “They will see me first.” I relaxed. And I could only relax because I know that I will be trying to get a job/build my business for a long time. [2]

As a consequence of realizing my situation, I was able to stop pretending, and that’s how I found my cover-letter-writing voice (later I’ll talk about how I’m handling interviews these days). However, your cover letter still isn’t a journal entry or a love letter or a cry for help. There has to be structure and some formality. Past advice I gave about writing cover letters still stands: there is a formula, and once you get it down, it should be a breeze (but it isn’t). But, with a new emphasis on “we want someone pleasant to work with,” finding your voice as a cover letter writer is, I think, becoming more and more important. Obviously this only applies to appropriate positions where they care if you have a personality.

Two thoughts:

- Maybe HR people aren’t as robotic as we make them out to be (says the former union organizer[3]). Maybe they DO look for nuance, but only in smaller organizations.

- Not all companies have HR departments. Therefore, the people that are reading your resumes are going to work with you, maybe directly. Probably directly. And if you come across as a total snooze-fest, you might be overlooked. Unless they are looking for a snoozefest. You should research this company before you send your cover letter and find out.

My point is: people don’t want to work with people that are duds. And while it seems to me that employers are less inclined to take risks on applicants that might not exceed the skill level they’re looking for [4], I believe having a personality and being able to represent yourself adequately, not just your skills but what kind of person you are, can really help you at least get in the door for the interview. Just being able to represent yourself fully is a giant skill in itself.

Now, the question is: could I have arrived at where I’m at with my cover letter writing abilities if I hadn’t stressed out and read and reread my cover letters over and over again? I’m going to say no. Just like cooking, screenprinting, writing, or any artistic endeavor, it is a process. As my piano teacher said when I was little, “You have to learn the rules first if you want to break them later.” I was a really bad piano player.

[1] I got a 20-ish hours a week job copywriting as an independent contractor. I also now have some freelance clients. I’m underemployed and looking for jobs/clients, so I still feel justified in keeping this blog.

[2] I might be a business. You know, a small business. Real small. Like, just me. More about that later.

[3] I know we’re all (union related people), supposed to hate HR people, but I worked against/alongside some really great HR people in Pennsylvania when I was sitting across the table during contract negotiations. They wanted the best for their employees and the people they served. And I know this because I was there and saw it and their bank records.

[4] Oh man, I read Steve Martin’s book about being a stand-up comic, and he wrote about how when he was starting out, the Smothers Brothers, whom I have always loved and still love, took a chance on him, even though he was a nobody. It’s rare that anyone takes chances like that anymore. SAD FACE.

“Before my interview  a couple weeks ago, I made this cheat sheet. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, I forget my qualifications, the questions I want to ask, etc. Having this in front of me was a big help. If you have an in-person interview, make one of these and have a friend/SO/pet/parent ask you surprise questions and use a list of questions like this as a study guide. It really boosts confidence. She asked me more/different questions but they all were pretty close.

“Also! I read this awesome tidbit. A trendy interviewing style nowadays
is to phrase questions in the form of asking for an anecdote. Example:
Rather than “How do you handle disagreements with co-workers?” it
would be “Tell me about a time you handled a dispute with a co-
worker.” Try to think of scenarios for questions like these. And
remember! Always ask questions at the end!”

1. Tell me about yourself.

This is the place to describe your experiences in the workplace, what you’ve done, where your interests lie, your education, your passions. What are your priorities? What are you looking for?
2. What experience do you have in this field?

Start where you’re at and work backwards. What do you do now? What experiences led you to this place? What are you willing to learn? It’s important to contextualize your experiences, at least for yourself.

3. Why this place?

Do you have a personal relationship/history with this potential place of employment? Describe that. This is a good place to talk about how this place relates to your interests and priorities. And how this place is a perfect match for your skill set.

4. What are your weaknesses and strengths?

Listen there is no answer to this question that I am comfortable with. I definitely struggle with this one. Whitney chose a good one. They key to the success of her answer is in bold.

“I like to be in control. This has proven to be at some times an asset to my team and other times, a weakness. But I have made huge improvements in the last few years. I now understand that more heads are better than one and listening to others has now become one of my greatest strengths.”

It may seem easier to pick your greatest strength, but be thoughtful. Sometimes what comes out of your mouth can make you sound like a giant pain in the ass. Whitney, of course, handled this answer with grace as well.

“I am a quick learner and I rarely get flustered or frustrated. When a million things come flying at me and I’m working under a deadline, I think staying level headed, delegating tasks, and creating to-do lists is more productive than feeling defeated.”

5. Salary Needs.
Do your research. Make sure you know what the going rate is. There are websites like salary.com that can make this easier. I have been told to overshoot by about $5000. Don’t undervalue the cost of your labor.
6. How long would you expect to work for us?
Great question. Be honest. People can tell if you’re lying. If you say you are going to work there until you die, they can smell your fakeness.

Whitney had a great answer, of course, that did not seem fakey.

“This is my dream job. It utilizes my skills and experience and the institution shares my beliefs as concerning education and diversity. I want this is to be my career, not just a job.”

This answer answers the question without signing a 20-year contract.

7. Describe a time when you had to handle or were part of a dispute at
work.

Put some thought into this before you walk into that interview. You have had work disputes. Don’t bad mouth your boss. Wait until you’re past your probation period for that. I would recommend answering this question with an anecdote about people you have managed, if you’ve had management experience, or coworkers. This is a question that gives insight into your interpersonal skills and problem solving capabilities. Very very very important. Nobody wants to work with someone who lacks social grace.

8. Have you ever been asked to leave a position?

If you have been laid off, that’s easy to discuss. Been fired? less easy, but not impossible. Again, do not trash your boss or coworkers. You might come across as bitter, and nobody wants to be around that. If you have been asked to leave a position, end the answer on a positive note. Don’t say “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” because in this economy nobody will believe you. You might want to talk about what you learned from the experience and how it has changed you into a better person.

9. Why should we hire you?

You should have a list of 90 things you can say here, but, just as in a cover letter, this list should meet and then exceed all the requirements of the job. This is also a great place to expound on your interpersonal skills, problem-solving abilities, personal strengths that will inform how you perform in your potential position. This is the place to make yourself stand out. I think it’s really important to point out, drawing from your life and career experiences, your unique skill set. Make yourself stand out.

10. Suggestion for the job. Anything you would change about the
job?

Holy crap. If you haven’t done your homework, you are going to fail fail fail. Take a look at their website/publication, etc., with a critical eye. Google them, Lexis/Nexis them, run their name through google scholar, blogs, etc. If you don’t have anything to say here, you’re going to look woefully unprepared. You will also come across as the kind of person who lacks a critical eye. For example: I recently had an interview for a web editor position at an institution of higher learning, in which they asked what ideas I had to improve the content on their website. I mentioned that the students voices should be present, and suggested ways to do that. I didn’t get the job, but man did I give a great answer!

11. Quotes from previous co-workers:

What a great idea. I recently read an article from an interviewer who said that one of the most creative interviews he ever conducted ended with the interviewee leaving a pamphlet about how awesome she was, including quotes from former coworkers/bosses. What a great idea. And if you aren’t asking for recommendations on your linked in page, you are totally missing the point of having a linked in page. (I need to go ask for recommendations).

14. Do you have any questions for me?

Dude, if you don’t have questions, you look like

a. you haven’t done your home work

b. you are disinterested

c. you lack self-direction

d. you are not invested in the company or organization you are allegedly interested in. I have made the mistake of “winging” it on this portion of the interview. Nobody wants to hear “I think we’ve covered it all,” though sometimes this can be the case if you ask questions through out the interview. You better come up with some good ones. Here are some good ones Whitney came up with:
How many people are on the team that I would work with?
What is your timeline for projects?
What are you looking to improve in this position?

GO GET ‘EM TIGERS!

Stephanie says:

At unemployment club last week we talked about how some days, going to the post office is all you can do, and then you’re beat and you consider your day over. Well, I’m going to argue that you probably did more than that, and also, let’s not underestimate the work that goes into doing anything involving the Chicago Postal Service.

Having a job is such a necessity and practical goal that we often ignore or dismiss the emotional toll it can take on a person.There is a reason it is called “working through your emotions.” Sometimes just sitting there can count as work. I think that it’s important for the unemployed to give themselves permission to grieve the loss of whatever piece of identity they had to give up on the way to unemployment. I think it’s important that we recognize the existential anxiety that I believe is probably unavoidable. I think it’s important to recognize those feelings and give them some space. But don’t let them take over.

Here are three simple tactics I use to keep the existential demons at bay:

Make plans. I have places to be. I volunteer on Mondays and Tuesdays, and then I have unemployment club on Fridays. My “week” has a beginning and end, just like people with jobs. Now I know what day it is! YAY!

Set goals for the week and meet those goals. Make sure they are reasonable. Don’t set yourself up to fail, but don’t go too easy on yourself. My goal is to send out three resumes a week. The reason I set that number as a goal is because I know that I take time to send out these things. I write every cover letter afresh for every job I apply for, and I tailor my resume each time.

I also have other goals, like updating this blog, keeping the kitchen from looking like a giant cat groomed itself over piles of dirty dishes and spilled coffee grounds, volunteering, training for the half marathon (failing at that right now), and other things that change from week to week.

Write down everything you do in a day planner. If you’re wondering where your days are going, the best way to figure that out is to keep track of it on paper. “Watched Dr Phil and then two hours of CHiPS” should be a red flag. Ask yourself why that was all you could do. Is it because you couldn’t bear the emotional reality of your situation? Then be honest with yourself and give yourself the permission to be the person that watches three hours of TV. But if you’re doing that every day, you’ve got to do something different. I’m not qualified to tell you how to fix that, but maybe an unemployment group could help you out.

Some of my days look like this: Volunteered 12-3, cleaned bedroom, read several articles about how the economy sucks balls.

or

Sent out resume to this place for such and such position, volunteered 12-3 library from 3-6 (writing), updated personal website.  That’s a full day I can feel pretty good about.

or

Jack shit.

Sometimes you have Jack shit days. I try not to have those too often.

My friend Whitney and I started an under/unemployment club last week and we had 7 attendees. During our club’s first meeting, I discussed streamlining the internet job-hunting process by creating a folder in your google reader so you don’t have to go to every single job site you are interested in and do the same searches over and over again. Setting up this folder eliminates repetitive searches, and saves tons of time.

If you don’t know how to use google reader, watch this video. I didn’t watch it, but if it does what it says it’s going to do, you should be all set when the ten minutes are up.

Now, let’s talk about what kind of job you want. Say, like me, you’re looking for a sort of “new media” editorial position. You would want to make a list of key words that go along with that position, which would include the obvious, like edit, editorial, web, media, write, writer, etc. but then it might include less obvious words. My advice: look at the job description of a job you want to apply for (or have applied for), and make a list of those keywords.

I’m looking at the description for a New Media position that I applied for, and these are some of the less obvious words that go along with positions like the one I am interested in:

multimedia, proofread, publication, research, content management, organization, deadline, communication, critical thinking, problem solving skills, interpersonal skills.

Pick the words that are most important to you and throw them into a job search engine.

Also, if you have a degree in communications and you don’t have your heart set on any specific jobs but want to use your skill set, plug “communications” into your job search engine to retrieve jobs that prefer job candidates that come from a background similar to yours.

Also plus, if there’s a company or organization you’re dying to work for, you can plug that name into the search engine, and any jobs they post will come up.

Ok, so here we are with our list of keywords. Now comes the part where you find websites that have jobs you want on them and plug in your key words.

I’m going to go ahead and save you some time. Here are some of the websites I look at:

indeed.com

craigslist.org

elance.com

allchicagojobs.com

linkup.com

monster.com

journalismjobs.com

higheredjobs.com

npo.net

idealist.org

That’s what I have in my reader. So that should keep you busy for a while. I’m sure there are other websites for whatever your specialty is, but I’m not going to look it up for you. Take some initiative!

SO. Let’s try this with indeed.com. Go to their website and throw in a keyword and location. I put in Chicago and content management. Because you’re feeding all the results into your reader, it’s easy to skim through and see what you’re not interested in, so casting a wide net isn’t a big deal.

Wow. Six hundred and eighty three results.

Now, take that URL and head on over to your google reader page, click on “add a subscription” paste the URL into the box that pops up, and then it’ll ask you if you want to create the feed or cancel. But you want to create that feed, so you do. BAM. Now every time a new job appears on indeed.com including the keyword you searched, it will show up in your reader.

(Warning: not all websites will fit nicely into your reader. Some aren’t set up to feed. What I have done, in this instance, is create a bookmark folder in my browser bar called “jobs” and I save the searches there.)

Say you do this for about 15 site/keyword combos. How do you keep them from getting all mixed up in your food blog feeds and news feeds? Well, let’s make a folder.

Click on the feed you just created in the left hand column of google reader, click on the “feed settings” button on the tool bar, and then either add it to your “jobs” folder, or if you don’t have one already, click on “new folder”, name it, and you’re good to go.

This takes a little bit of time up front, but it’s an investment that will pay off, saving you lots of time sifting through those websites. Why do it over and over when you can just do it once? Plus, searching those websites can be a distraction from the real issue: writing cover letters, tweaking resumes, and sending them out!

“Before landing this job, I quit my full-time freelance gig not really realizing how harsh it was out there (but I shouldn’t have been there as long as I was). Anywho, I honestly was only offered interviews from people I knew, through people they knew–and that was a very small number.

I even received mailed hardcopies of rejection letters. I received this one response from a small design firm that said, “We’re only three people.” They looked much larger online. I also was guilty in sending numerous, templated cover letters and was stopped by an employee at The Post Family–he told me it was painfully obvious that this wasn’t tailored, and helped me buck up.”

Lessons to be learned:

1. Send out tailored resumes AND coverletters!

2. Do your research on the place you’re applying for!

3. Meet people, make friends, know people!

I am personally having a similar experience with job interviews. The interviews I have had were because I knew someone or knew someone that knew someone that knew someone. Ask around. You’d be surprised who knows who. (Is every post I write going to say this? Maybe.)