If you can bear it, head over to www.odesk.com and look up some SEO jobs. There’s tons of stuff that’ll pop up. They pay peanuts, almost literally, but it’s something.
It’s funny, I was just using odesk for an project of ours.
The offers are terrible, in the absolutely unlivable and abusive range of things for writers, but (as I said), it’s something!
SEO freelancers are in demand right now but for something more stable you could check out specialty companies like HubSpot or DemandResults, some of them support SEO integration with Salesforce and WordPress. Also jobs.wordpress.net is a good resource for freelance projects.
This happened to me fairly recently, and just happened to my father-in-law, so I have some practical advice.
First, figure out your burn rate vs/ savings. How long can you go? If it’s reasonably long, don’t cut off all your non-essentials immediately. You’re going to be home more than normal, and not going insane is a top priority. This piece of information also becomes really important for deciding what you’re willing to settle for and how wide you need to cast your net.
Go to the dentist/doctor/whatever now, while you’re still covered, unless you have copays that will eat good chunks of your savings.
Figure out your personal tendencies that are likely to turn you into a mess, and put rules in place to stop them. I made myself get up with the rest of my family every morning, and I wouldn’t let myself drink before dinner or play video games before lunch.
As you probably know, you are not your best editor. That goes double for resumes. Find someone you haven’t worked with who is a good editor and get them to go over your resume. Bonus points for someone who hires people. Double bonus points for someone who hires people like you.
You need to do some job search stuff every single day. You can’t, however, spend every hour of every day doing job search stuff. You just can’t - a lot of the search is waiting, especially if you’re looking near holidays. Make sure to set aside some time every day though.
Work your professional and social networks. This is almost a cliche, but it’s really true. My last two jobs weren’t advertised anywhere. Both job offers I received after I was laid off came from referrals. One was from a guy I hadn’t talked to in ten years who saw my facebook status update. Don’t just say “I got laid off!” You’ll get plenty of sympathy, which is great, but that’s not what you’re looking for. Be specific about what sort of work you’re looking for. Ask if they know anyone who needs SEO work done.
Consider part-time or contract work, but be careful. Your top job right now is looking for a job. If your part-time work interferes with that, that’s a problem. Of course, you may need to find this work if you don’t have savings. SEO work seems like a good field to pick up contract work from personal contacts - lots of people could benefit from a few days of good SEO work.
Even after you think you’re done, keep looking. Sometimes offers blow up at the last minute. It is much better to have to call and cancel a first interview because you’ve accepted an offer than to end up with nothing in the pipeline.
Cook. It’s cheaper, it provides structure to your day, it fills up time, and it’s a useful skill anyway.
Ask for help when it becomes clear that you’re going to be in trouble. Don’t wait until you are in trouble. I’d rather help a friend or family member stay out of a massive credit card driven financial disaster than try to help them after they’re paying high interest on the mess.
Call up anyone that you make regular payments to (internet, cable, etc) and explain your situation. Mention the magic keyworks “Financial Hardship”. Tell them that you love their service and don’t want to cancel, but you may need to due to said hardship.
I did this when I was unemployed, and they lowered my rates -significantly-. XM Radio went from $14/month down to $3. ISP dropped my rate by $20. DishNetwork dropped about $15, I think. T-Mobile dropped the rate as well.
By doing this, I was able to hang on to the services that I really liked and/or needed on a daily basis.
Excellent advice so far everyone, thank you so much.
K, so I’ve updated and tweaked my resume. Anyone here have any experience reading/editing resumes that wouldn’t mind taking a look, please?
Having been unemployed off and on for the past 2 years, I can attest that there is a ton of good advice above.
The only thing I would add: don’t take it personally. Your employment status does not define you. Remember to have fun. Remember that your spouse/kids/friends and relatives still like you and respect you. Find new ways to channel your energy and fill your day.
Painting the interior of the house is cheap, and a great way to both pass the time and improve your life.
I dunno if they’ll let me paint inside my apartment, and the cats would HATE that, but I see where you’re going, Benny. :) And I totally understand the not taking it personally thing. It was a layoff, not a firing, and I have some of the best friends in the world in my life. :)
Yeah, be sure to say “my position was eliminated” not “I was laid off” in interviews to reinforce the point that it was them not you.
Also, I know it’s somewhat of a cliche, but network everywhere you can. Don’t be afraid to tell people you’re looking for a new position. I was laid off back in 2002 at this exact same time (have a nice Christmas - oh yeah, you’re laid off) and I found my current job when I mentioned to the secretary at my son’s school that I needed to change the email address they had on file because I was no longer employed with that company. She asked me what I did, I told her, and she said “my husband is looking to hire people with those skills.”
So you never know where the job offer is going to come from.
Good luck and keep your head up.
Good stuff, Charlatan. Thank you!
Hijack! I’m in a similar position (except that once our biggest client was lost, our entire company went kaput not just me), and am considering contract/consultant work.
Any pros/cons? It sounds like there’s not really that many cons anymore, especially since these firms know their rep and are trying to fix it by taking care of their employees more (or at least they say so). Also, how do I calculate my desired rate of pay? I’ve never done hourly (well, not since Astroworld anyway). Straight division of what was my take-home + some markup or …?
Oohhh, good questions Marcin, I’m considering freelance work myself. Sorry to hear about your job loss sitch though.
Marcin: what field of work? That determines how hourly is computed, but in technical fields you’re looking at roughly double your hourly compared to when salaried. So if you made $50K/year (~$25/hour) then charge $50/hour as a baseline, then adjust for experience, market, discount for longevity (i.e. discount for a 6 month gig vs. a 3 day gig), charge a premium for short term gigs, etc.
Creative fields operate quite a bit differently however.
Marcin, I too am looking at contract work since I left my previous job about a month ago. I’m going through local agencies who do this kind of thing, hook up people with jobs that need filling, and they’ve been able to help me figure out what kind of rate I am looking for and all that. But it breaks down like BaconTastesGood describes, so far - the duration of the contract broken down into hours, then you can take that out to an annual hour total to get a comparative annual salary, which I’ve been using for comparison since that’s what I’m used to.
@Bacon: when you say “made 50k” I assume you mean after taxes? I just took my pre-deduction monthly and divided by 160. It seems to come out lower than your example though. Am I overlooking anything in that? I am assuming you are counting taxes + benefits + any savings plan in the “doubling”?
This is with a consulting company who’ll get me benefits, 401k, and placement help after the contract though, which (the benefits especially) would probably affect your numbers I’d guess?
Web developer so yeah, tech.
Okay, so, there are two kinds of contracting: 1099 and W2. W2 contracting is just like a job, but shorter-term. If you get benefits ‘n’ stuff, you’re going to get a premium over a permajob, but not necessarily a huge one – if it’s a 6-month contract, maybe 10% more than for a full job. To convert hourly rates to yearly salary, multiply by 2000 (40 hours a week by 50 work weeks).
1099 contracting requires you to get paid more, because among other things, you have to pay the employer half of Social Security yourself (which is 7.5% extra right there), plus you’re definitely not getting any benefits or anything.
Marcin, no, pretax.
If you’re going through an agency then expect to make significantly lower, probably closer to your salaried rate, because presumably they’ll handle a lot of the overhead and of course they’re skimming off the top, providing placement, and other benefits.
The “take your yearly salary and drop 3 zeroes and that’s your hourly” is only a guideline if you’re truly independent – this means buying your own equipment, working off-site, paying for your own services, etc. Once you have long term contracts in place and what not then it becomes a lot more like a salaried job (which is one reason that a lot of companies have gotten in trouble lately trying to hire what are effectively full time workers as if they’re contract workers by going through a contracting agency).
Another consideration with a consulting company is exclusivity and guarantees of work. So let’s say you grossed $50K previously. If the new consulting company is offering $25/hour with a guarantee of 40 hours/week, then hey, sure, that’s a decent deal, at least it’s only marginally shittier than a full time job but with some more flexibility. If they require exclusivity (which is somewhat hazy because now they’re a full time employer trying to hire you like a contractor) then it’s not as good because you can’t pick up side work.
Worst case is a requirement for exclusivity along with no minimum guarantees.
Not addressed to anyone in particular:
People are pretty poor judges of what they can charge because there are so many variables involved. Some very talented people get overbooked but don’t realize that they could double their rates without a drop off in work, but they feel like they’re being greedy or unfair by charging double. On the other side, some very untalented people just hear about big fees from others and assume they can charge comparable amounts (e.g. a Web developer that only knows HTML hears that a RoR expert is charging $150/hour and thus expects to charge that same amount because, hey, they’re both Web guys).
Hourly rates in a vacuum can feel very high when you start quoting them, but you’re going to find that there are two types of customers: those that will look at the rate, compare it to a salaried employee and go “Oh, screw you, you’re gouging me!” and those that will look at the cost of the job, compare it to having a salaried employee FULL TIME, and go “Oh, hey, great deal!” You want the latter, because they get it, the former are just trying to be cheap, and contract labor isn’t about being cheap, it’s about being flexible and/or hiring expertise (depends on the nature of the contractor/consultant…‘contractor’ implies that you can do a job well, but ‘consultant’ implies that you’re really, really very good at it and can charge a premium).
So let’s take something like a Web site design. A full time Web coder might be $100K/year assuming they’re good, can do solid PHP/AJAX/Web 2.0 blah blah blah. As an employer, even if you have a lot of work for that person, you’re paying a lot to keep them around. Salary, benefits, office space, computers, licenses, etc. It adds up.
Now let’s say you need a Web app developed. You can hire a FT guy, and he can do it in six months, and it’ll cost you $50K + overhead – you’re buying the dude a computer, office space, health benefits, etc. You can hire a contract guy, it’ll cost you $100K (no overhead), but once you’re done, you’re done. It’s a fixed cost. Salaried employees are an on-going cost and hassle.
So for a lot of businesses, while paying more for the time ($100K vs. $50K+), they actually prefer it because it’s less overhead in the long run. They have to pay a premium for this flexibility.
Now if the contractor doesn’t charge a premium for this flexibility and low overhead, they’re actually coming out WAY behind. Because as a contractor you pay for your own health insurance (hundreds of dollars to well into the thousands of dollars per month if you have pre-existing conditions and/or a family), your own licenses, computer, internet, etc. You’ve effectively shifted the overhead (and in many cases legal liability) onto yourself without making up the difference in pay. A lot of companies love that shit for obvious reasons, and in a bad job market can get away with it.
So keep that in mind when setting rates. Also, don’t try to undercut, because very often there’s this assumption that if you’re charging lower rates it’s because you have to. You don’t want to seem like a discount option unless you’re in fact trying to target the discount market.