1.) Volunteering is great!

If you don’t have a Habitat for Humanity in your neighborhood, find a cause that’s important to you (PTA, food bank, political cause or candidate, etc.), and go help them out.

It’s great for your spirit, and it can even help your job search:

* Filling in some gaps in your resume experience/skills area. For example, haven’t lead a project group? Nothing is a bigger challenge than leading a group of volunteers!

* Expanding your network – you’ll meet others who share some of the same values you have.

And, when they ask in an interview what you did when you were “between jobs” you’ll have a great response.

2.) Even people who don’t have outplacement services available to them can – and, in my humble opinion, SHOULD – find a job search support group. A job search can be lonely and discouraging. Support groups help most people cope and succeed.

* Often the state employment offices host them.

* Find them through your local library, community center, senior center (even), and/or church.

* Barbara Sher wrote the classic “Wishcraft” book in the 1980′s. It tells you how to set up “success teams,” and she offers a FREE PDF version of the book at Wishcraft.com

* I have over 800 listed on Job-Hunt.org in the “Local Networking & Job Search Support Groups” section.

Good luck with your job search!

Here are a few other ideas I found helpful for “staying fresh” and keeping balance during a job search:

- Get (and stay) physically fit. Take your newfound control over your calendar to make exercise a new habit and routine. It doesn’t matter what the sport is (although running a first marathon wouldn’t be a bad one!). Yoga? Pilates? Scuba? Triathlon? Sailing? If you always wanted to try, now’s the time. You’ll look and feel better. You feel more confident.

- Add a valued (overdue?) skill. Some job searchers I knew were older and had some glaring deficiencies that allowed potential employers to pidgeon-hole them as “old”. For example: poor computer skills, couldn’t do their own PowerPoint presentation, even lousy typing. In today’s environment, I’d add fluency in social media (use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) for business and professional growth.

- Have a cozy lunch/dinner with your Spouse every two weeks to update them on your job search progress. I think this is a pro-active stress buster. The spouse wants to help and is naturally curious…..but their follow-up and questions can be annoying to the job searcher dealing frequently with rejection and dead-ends. I worked an agreement with my wife: don’t ask everyday….I’ll de-brief you every 10 days or so about every lead over a glass of wine. We BOTH looked forward to it!

Wolf