Sean Reiser

Recently, I started volunteering with the Job Angels folks helping them setup their new site (which is still in progress). A number of people have asked me how, in these times I can go ahead and “waste my time doing volunteer work” if I’m not getting as much work as I should. Where I can understand that attitude, it’s something I disagree with whole heartedly.

There is a philosophy that when a person in not fully employed (either on the beach or working part time), he needs to treat being out of work as a full time job. The first time I was out of work as an adult, I interpreted this as meaning you need to be looking for a job 8 - 10 hours a day, which is a mistake. I would literally every fifteen minutes refresh searches on Dice, Monster, CL, Careerbuilder, etc since I figured that there was some advantage to being the first resume in the recruiter’s inbox. In retrospect I realize how desperate and naive that sounds. I have nothing to show for that 2 month period other then that I know how to hit the F5 key. Oh, I guess I continued to convert Oxygen to Carbon Dioxide.

On many occasions since then I have been in a position to evaluate resumes and I saw what some folks did when they were out of work and learned how I should be handling it myself. I established a new rule when I’m out of work for the first week I work all my contacts, but once I get past that I spend a maximum of 2 hours a day working the job boards. An hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Obviously, emails and phonecalls don’t count against that time. The balance of my time I spending doing some combination of the following:

• Learning a new skill - I find skills that were lacking in my last position or needed updating. I spend time sharpening these skills to make myself more marketable for the next job.
• Build Out My Social Network - I spend some time working LinkedIn, Blogging, and other Social Networking Sites. Engaging the community always has unexpected benefits.
• Working With Non Profits - I’m not saying take one of these “work for free and setup my company” bottom feeders that show up on Craigslist. Find an organization your believe in, whether it’s your Church, some Fraternal Organization, or a NPO that you believe in. This has a number of advantages:
  1. I can use skills you’ve never had the opportunity to in a job and get them on a resume. I insist on doing something outside of my comfort zone to allow me to grow.
  2. Since I list projects on my resume instead of jobs, there aren’t gaps on my resume. (Lawyers list probono work on their resume, why shouldn’t technologists.)
  3. Mentally, I have a reason to get out of bed in the morning as I’m looking. Without some sort of work the process of being out of work is painful.
  4. There is a feeling of accomplishment I get when I work on projects that I believe in.
  5. I make contacts while working on volunteer projects which can later be used while looking for an assignment.
  6. On an interview I can talk about volunteer projects with passion since it’s something I believe in. Interviewers like to hear passion.

My advice to anyone looking for work is when looking for work find something to do to enhance yourself and the world around you. The organizations around you need more then your money, they need people who will roll up their sleeves and get work done and in many cases they need this more then cash.