thanks. trying to stay positive.

3/17/2009 6:51:55 PM

That's the best thing to do.

3/17/2009 6:55:26 PM

hey yall try Verizon, they were and may still be hiring in the cary location, they were consolidating some groups from around the country into the cary location
its worth a look

3/17/2009 7:05:08 PM

has anyone considered careers in the medical field?

what do you do to keep busy? applying for jobs all day can be very tiring, and you can exhaust options quickly.

are any of you doing volunteer or community work? that may be another way to network

my job is safe for now but the knife sure is close.. my division laid off 35% with more coming and we have 7 weeks of rolling layoffs at two factories in NC.. everyone is going home without pay including my boss's boss

3/17/2009 7:29:11 PM

I (and everyone else at my old job besides the boss) have been laid off for a month.

Luckily, I get a lot of contract work that I can do from home, so I stay busy with that, my own projects, and applying for jobs. Also, I use a lot of time every day by sleeping 'til about 11

[Edited on March 17, 2009 at 8:00 PM. Reason : .]

3/17/2009 7:58:48 PM

i'd use the extra time getting into insane shape and getting certified as a personal trainer

then i'd try to do that on the side in the meantime

or become a private yoga instructor

3/17/2009 8:14:12 PM

i may be unemployed soon. the uncertainty is kind of thrilling

3/17/2009 8:24:10 PM

Quote :

"what do you do to keep busy? applying for jobs all day can be very tiring, and you can exhaust options quickly."

I have definitely not been missing my gym time at all. Been spending a lot of time there so that's been good.

Go to Panera and play on WiFi and eat breakfast.

Apply for lots of jobs, go to networking events.

I'm going to paint the steps in my condo this week.

Take time to get lunch with people like my grandfather and friends I haven't seen in a while.

3/17/2009 9:52:01 PM

kirk, you're so positive! i love it. im glad to hear you're making the most of the situation and keeping yourself busy with productive activities in addition to the job search and networking.

3/17/2009 10:37:38 PM

Quote :

"what do you do to keep busy? applying for jobs all day can be very tiring, and you can exhaust options quickly."

I've gotten basically all of the odd-jobs that have been piling up around the house done. I'm basically 3 months out of work now and just in the past week or so I've been running out of things to keep me busy around the house all day. I've been doing as much as possible to make our house better and nicer, without spending a lot of money - for example, painting all of the rooms in our house is probably $250 of paint, but the house looks so much better

- I've painted or re-painted basically every wall in my house.
- Put down laminate flooring in my kitchen and bathrooms (something I've wanted to do since we bought the house. Cost some money, but.... it was worth it to cover up 20 year old vinyl)
- Painted all the trim and baseboards.
- Cleaned out all of our closets and taken loads of clutter and clothes to salvation army or sold it on craigslist and ebay
- Digitized a box full of old VHS and home videos from when i was a kid and made DVDs of the videos to send to family members
- Scanned and digitized years worth of saved files (bills, paychecks) and shredded thousands of pages of old documents
- kept the house clean!

now that it's warming, i'll probably start working outside more. Have some stuff in the yard to do.

Plus - i've been cooking every day. My wife and I haven't gone out to eat or gotten take out in like, 2 months now, because I cook dinner every afternoon before she gets home from teaching.

And, i've taken our two dogs to the park every day to run or ride my bike when them. When both of us are working, we only get to take them out on the weekends and maybe once during the week.

3/17/2009 11:06:14 PM

^ thats awesome

its amazing how simple things like a fresh coat of paint indoors, home cooked meals and outdoor activity can improve quality of life

3/17/2009 11:58:08 PM

i take lunch with me to work, its one of many good habits ive formed since starting my new job
ive also meticulously planned out my finances on excel
its a powerful thing to see all your income and expenses on one page
it let you know where you waste and where you should allocate money for your future

3/18/2009 12:37:41 AM

^ man I cant do that shit. I suck at the money thing. need to get better at it not having a real job and all though.

3/18/2009 5:03:14 AM

need to organize your finances? http://www.mint.com FTW

great to see the positive attitudes here. very inspiring. I will follow your leads.

3/18/2009 7:37:10 AM

Quote :

"construction FTL."

True that, Projects are being cancelled left and right.

3/18/2009 10:57:48 AM

^^ i sound like an old man asking this

but how secure is their site? i know they want your account info

3/18/2009 11:07:34 AM

Shoot, just use excel! I mean, having easy to fill out fields and a handy website (that you can access anywhere) is a really sweet way to do business. Having an excel sheet on your home computer is a lot easier though. Just start listing your expenses and income in different columns and set up a new worksheet for each year in your excel file. I did a VERY basic budget sheet in excel for my expenses and the money I had left to figure out where to cut corners so I could last as LONG AS POSSIBLE in case I was unemployed for a very long time and couldn't find work anywhere.

I cut off digital cable, my roommate bought a cheap TV tuner so we can watch basic cable, and now we pay $50/mo and watch most of the shows we wanted to watch anyway. Since it's hooked up to his computer, we also watch shows online. Saved us $70/mo. I also started combining my trips so I go out very little. When I visit my parents for Friday dinner I usually leave around 9pm and go grocery shopping immediately afterward. I already looked up the deals before I left and try to restrict buying junk food (though I always buy some, I make sure to get the best deals and to limit how many things I get each time I go shopping). I also cut back on my electricity usage as much as possible and have stretched out my laundry pretty well. All this just from looking at how much I was spending on some things each month.

Plus, your information likely won't get stolen if it's on your personal computer on a private network, haha. It's an issue with any website, and if that's a problem for you (at all) you should just stick to homebrewed excel spreadsheets. In fact, I bet there are some free excel spreadsheets out there on the internet to help you budget if you just search for one.

As for the other news today, I'm still waiting to hear back about a proper (second) offer from the one employer. Here's to hoping I hear back sometime soon!

3/18/2009 11:22:40 AM

Quote :

"^^ i sound like an old man asking this but how secure is their site? i know they want your account info"

everything i have read indicates it is very secure. all it does it log you in to your accounts, but you cant access them, ie...spend money from the account

3/18/2009 12:38:05 PM

Quote :

"True that, Projects are being cancelled left and right. "

yep . working in eng. construction myself and my office has had insane amounts of very large projects going with major delays in start of design, completely shutting down in the middle of design, or shutting down before design even starts. Getting pretty rough.

3/18/2009 12:42:40 PM

That's how I lost my (2nd) job. Canceled/Postponed projects.

3/18/2009 12:57:06 PM

I just got a job after being unemployed for almost 6 months. It pays half of what I used to make, but I can advance into management after a year or two.

3/18/2009 1:17:40 PM

^^ bummer. I love my job so Im hoping things turn around. And luckily we had quite the backlog which gave us a cushion for awhile here, but lack of a seat on a project when mine ends this summer/fall is more of a possibility now

3/18/2009 1:25:56 PM

project delays killed me.

3/18/2009 1:55:37 PM

I love my job too. We hade a Huge Coke Battery Project shut down last week, then this morning we found out a SCR/FGD Project we just started a month ago is getting shut down also.

My project is going to be finished at the end of april, its possible that they will ship me back to the home office to do some estimating but its more likely that they will start letting people go. We already had 2 rounds of layoffs.

3/18/2009 2:14:00 PM

Just finished with an interview, I guess it went well. It only lasted like 20 min...

my biggest worry is that there's no guarantee for longevity, it all hangs on the success of the product thats about to be launched in about 2 months. So even if I take it there's a good chance that the job will be cut in a couple months, especially with this economy.

3/18/2009 2:16:12 PM

Hey if any if you unemployed folks were project engineers or project managers give this a look:

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/egr/1079412381.html

If you're going to be graduating soon with an MS or MCE in Structural, here's another one to look at:

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/egr/1080283717.html

Just some ideas for ya!

^ Don't worry about the time. I had 2 interviews with a company and they made me an offer, then came back a month after I couldn't accept their offer and asked if I was still interested. First interview was 25 mins. Second was 10-15 mins. Unusual to me too, but some companies just seem to work out that way!

[Edited on March 18, 2009 at 3:07 PM. Reason : words!]

3/18/2009 3:03:22 PM

What websites to do y'all use to look for jobs?

I use monster, craigslist, careerbuilder, indeed.com and simplyhired.com

3/18/2009 3:08:05 PM

Has anyone tried applying to retail chains like Target for a job? Is it so bad that you can't even find a job there? I'm an ME looking for a job and thinking about Target at this point.

3/18/2009 3:11:46 PM

I applied to the home depot, Aldi, Boston Market (2 positions thar), and have sent emails out to a couple people just looking for help for odd jobs on craigslist. Heard back nothing from all of those!

Yeah, there's hundreds of people competing for each job because people are applying to every job they can find as their field is dried up or shrinking.

3/18/2009 3:28:06 PM

just got 2 pretty good leads. hope to get the interviews next week.

3/18/2009 4:10:56 PM

Every time I find something posted on a careers website I get a response saying they are under a hiring freeze. Got to keep on plugging away.

3/18/2009 5:00:24 PM

apparently people wanting you to work for free is the new thing

3/18/2009 5:16:06 PM

have any of you considered or applied for overseas programs?

peace corp
ameri corp

or teaching english?

what about joining the reserves?

just curious

[Edited on March 18, 2009 at 6:48 PM. Reason : lksdjfkdjsf]

3/18/2009 6:47:37 PM

i wouldnt do anything too crazy that would bind me to something i dont want to do

if the stock market is any clue the economy should start turning around by late this year
if you can find something to do in the mean time that is good
also i'd consider going to school and ride out this bad year

3/18/2009 11:30:27 PM

what about being an avon or mark rep? that sort of thing?

im definitely not saying anyone should sign up for something they dont want to do, especially when there is a long term commitment involved

personally, i'd consider the peace corps myself and rent out my house while im gone

i hear the fbi is hiring

the stock market may be coming back but i wont see it as a sign of improvement until it starts trending back up. things arent anticipated to improve until the end of the year... thats 3 more quarters to go, this mess didnt happen overnight and it certainly isnt going away overnight

3/18/2009 11:54:33 PM

I'm pretty sure my gf would kill me if I went and did something like the peace corps. I'm pretty flexible on moving somewhere though if she lands a sweet job. We've both got condo's we would probably rent out. Unless I find a great job prior to her finding something, I think we're both pretty open to going to different places.

3/19/2009 10:23:53 AM

my gf and I are kinda talking about the Peace Corps.. and talking about grad school... and talking (although not seriously) about hiking the Appalachian Trail... I guess that means we're pretty lost.

I've been unemployed for ten months now. The first six months of that we spent in Australia where she was working. We came back at xmas time. I guess the good news is that since we came back from Australia, we have no mortgages or rent leases or cars. So we're living back with the folks until we find jobs or figure something else out.

I spend a few hours a day looking for jobs. I try to do a serious/solid application a day. Then i do housework for the folks, run errands for them, and work on the house. We're building a big deck, redoing some furniture, etc. I'm also reading up on biokinetics in robotics and am about to start a little project dealing with that. I might start an EOL Masters of Engineering in May.

3/19/2009 11:35:13 AM

i have an interview on tuesday and a couple other positions maybe in the works

can't wait to be working again

3/19/2009 12:51:12 PM

good luck man.

3/19/2009 1:06:15 PM

I've only been out of work for a little over a month... I've been running/working out every day, working on my own projects, and applying to other jobs.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned it already in this thread, but unemployment is really easy to sign up for, and really easy to file every week. It almost seems too easy... just answer like 5 questions, then you're set for the week.

Anyone here who was unemployed for a few months, then got a job? Was it weird adjusting back to going to work each day, or pretty easy?

3/19/2009 1:25:15 PM

Anyone here running into contract positions? All I have been able to find is contract positions and my last job was contract, trying to get a full time position.

3/19/2009 1:35:54 PM

ive been out of full time work for almost 5 months now but ive been temping and doing freelance shit.

unemployment is easy as pie to sign up for and will save your ass. Entry level positions outside of waiting tables and data entry are pretty much non-existent in new york city right now.

3/19/2009 1:44:55 PM

Quote :

"hey yall try Verizon, they were and may still be hiring in the cary location, they were consolidating some groups from around the country into the cary location its worth a look"

Way negatory if you mean Verizon Business, we had layoffs in the NOC and even a few in sales as well as our group. Not very many and it's been fairly quiet. Definitely aren't hiring though, well with exception to one asshat that never came in and it was mission critical. We replaced him quick.

3/19/2009 3:04:36 PM

Quote :

"my gf and I are kinda talking about the Peace Corps.. "

just fyi... they can't guarantee the same location unless you're married

3/19/2009 3:29:10 PM

if you're thinking about doing that with your gf you might as well get married.

3/19/2009 3:33:13 PM

is anyone learning a foreign language?

3/19/2009 7:07:47 PM

negative

3/19/2009 11:07:07 PM

Quote :

"Way negatory if you mean Verizon Business, we had layoffs in the NOC and even a few in sales as well as our group. Not very many and it's been fairly quiet. Definitely aren't hiring though, well with exception to one asshat that never came in and it was mission critical. We replaced him quick."

yes verizon business, i work there, just got hired, my group hired roughly 20, mostly NC state students
looks like we will hire more later

3/19/2009 11:28:35 PM

Quote :

"[quote]my gf and I are kinda talking about the Peace Corps.. "

just fyi... they can't guarantee the same location unless you're married[/quote]

Yeh, we're engaged so we'd get married first.

3/19/2009 11:37:08 PM

^^

What group? Doing what and was it direct or through an agency? That's kick ass. I have one friend in sales on the 2nd floor in Cary 2. I'm on the 6th.

[Edited on March 19, 2009 at 11:49 PM. Reason : a]

3/19/2009 11:48:41 PM