How to Prepare for Losing Your Job
One of the most traumatic financial disasters you can face, and millions of Americans have in the last two years, is losing your job. The key to bouncing back on your feet is to prepare for it ahead of time. There are plenty of things you can do that will soften the blow of being fired, though nothing will completely dampen it, and as long as you put some things in place you can make your life a little easier for the next few months.
The general idea behind the tips in the “While You Have a Job” is to setup a scenario where you don’t feel like you’ve been thrown into the middle of the Pacific Ocean without a life preserver. You want to set things up so that if you are fired, you can bounce back as quickly as possible and those tips, hopefully, put you on that path. The tips in the “When You Are Fired” are a little less novel because the general strategy for finding a new job is pretty well laid out.
I hope this latest edition of the Financial Contingency Plan series helps you out!
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In every professional sport, there’s a concept of a “rebuilding year.” These are the years where the team is working on drafting good prospects, building up their young talent, and crafting a competitive championship-caliber team piece by piece. It’s difficult to field a championship team every year for more than a few years, with free agency and everything, so it’s expected that after a few years of stellar performance, you’re bound to have a few leaner years where you’re rebuilding your talent. The good teams do this well, with strong performing rebuilding years, and others do it poorly.
Years ago, one of my job functions was to go to my alma mater’s career fair and collect resumes from prospective future employees. I had a great time because I was only a year or so out of school, I could hang out with my friends, and I enjoyed seeing all different the resumes. In that time, I saw some great resumes and I saw some not so great resumes. 
There are two big pieces to the resume puzzle – the resume itself and the well-crafted cover letter. If your resume is the car, then your cover letter are the tires. Most people don’t think about the tires on their car but your tires are the only thing on your car that touches the road. Most people don’t think much about their cover letters, especially with so much job hunting online, but it’s important because it gives you the opportunity to relate your resume to the job. A listing of accomplishments is nice, especially if your accomplishments are many, but sometimes hiring managers need help figuring out why you might be the best fit for a job opening.
A few years ago, when unemployment was low and the economy was rosy, all you needed to do to get a job was get your resume in front of as many people as possible. You had to carpet bomb, stuff electronic resume boxes, and simply wait. One of the companies you reached out to probably had a job opening and you probably were a pretty good fit.
In this recession, companies are turning to furloughs, or unpaid leave, as a way to cut costs without cutting people. As you can imagine, being furloughed is never a good thing. Companies in good financial shape generally don’t furlough their staff, it’s usually companies that need to cut costs or are having difficulty with cash flow. It’s not uncommon for a company to furlough staff one week and then decide they need to have layoffs the next. While that’s not always the case, you plan for the worst and hope for the best.
With the weak economy and everyone feeling like their job, if they still have one, is in peril, people are trying to add to their skill set and make themselves a more productive and valuable employee. They’re 
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