“What to Do if You’re Fired - This step-by-step guide will help you find new employment fast” by Marty Nemko is perhaps one of the best articles I’ve read on taking immediate steps if you’ve been fired or laid off.

Blending traditional job search techniques with the new tools of personal brand and career management, Nemko’s article is a must read for anyone who currently has a job and those have been laid off. Below are the highlights from Nemko’s five-step job search action plan:

1. No self pity and inactivity: self-defeating thoughts turns that “chip on my shoulder into a boulder.
2. New self talk and mantas: “being terminated is for the best.”
3. Self analysis: ask questions like “what can I learn from this?”
4. Cut expenses: cut to expenses by eating at home, use free entertainment, and stop unnecessary spending.
5. Launch the one-week job search program: cram the entire search into one week by using today’s online personal branding tools like blogs, twitter, and VisualCV.com:
   • Start blogging in your area of professional expertise.
   • Use Twitter, since your tweets should be a parade of your ideas that would impress your target employer.
   • Cold calls to prospective employers by contacting the person with the power to hire you at the five to 20 employers you’d most want to work for. Call after hours, use www.visualcv.com
   • Call or e-mail the ten to 50 people in you network.
   • Answer five to ten on-target want ads.

Check out Nemko’s article for the full details on how to launch the “just got fired” or “just got laid off” job seach.

Recommended Reading List

• Cool Careers For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)by Marty Nemko PhD and Richard N. Bolles
• Career Comeback: Eight steps to getting back on your feet when you’re fired, laid off, or your business ventures has failed–and finding more job satisfaction than ever beforeby Bradley Richardson
• The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search: The Proven Program Used by the Worlds Leading Career Services Companyby Orville Pierson

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