As I see the count of people applying for jobs for PM’s move past 400, I am reminded many of my fellow IT workers and all job hunters for that matter may have a need to file for unemployment.

Some tips in doing so:

• It’s kinda your money anyway — You pay into several buckets including disability, workers comp, payroll, and other state and federal taxes that leave your paycheck before you receive it: you are just getting some of that back which you will again probably pay taxes on, don’t start, that’s just how it is
  
• File as soon as possible -> your check is based on the amount of your past paychecks so gaps might limit the amount
• Focus on required fields -> you may come across fields to slice up your pay in quarters, if it is too difficult to understand call your UnEmp Office or let the computer figure this for you
• Don’t delete your “thank you for applying for PM…” emails -> these will come in handy EVERY WEEK as you will need to type in the date, link, title of each job you applied for to prove you are always looking for work
• Apply for everything reasonable -> When this is all over, you will at least have multiple places where your skills have been at least reviewed for potential future projects
  
• Apply every day – One some site: LinkedIn, Careerbuilder, Monster, Indeed Dice, all send you emails and some keep records of your applications you can refer to
  
• Invest an hour, then a few minutes -> Take the time to go through every job title in your arena of work and desired location for the last 30 days and apply to those.  Then the next day check on;y “Today’s Posts”  and review only the new posts and apply as applicable
• It’s not enough to live on -> you might get $1,500 a month or $300 a week and in states like CA that barely pays for your parking permit so keep looking

As we all try to navigate this time in our world history, faith, hope, and love of course will last.  Assistance may be needed for a time, and ultimately, we will all come out together on the other side.