Joining the Ranks of the Ten-Percenters

So here I am starting week seven of my official unemployment.  Thankfully my situation was by choice and I had time to prepare.  I figured that I would start this blog as my collection of random thoughts which I envision ultimately routing toward a relevant theme.

I must say that it is interesting to find myself on this side of the table.  After many years of seeing people in my workforce go through temporary layoffs and unemployment, it is eye opening to experience the system personally.  I must say that is sadly not setup to support the needs of any serious employment search.  But this will not veer into a rant against the government system (though I may at times opine on how things could be done better).

I'm including a link from the Missouri Division of Employment Security (that's our state's euphemism for Department of Unemployment I guess) which allows you to calculate the effect any part-time employment wages would have against your weekly benefit.  I'm certain other states have something similar.  It is a little disheartening to see that the state has zero interest in creating an incentive for people to secure a part-time job by offering a tiered structure of benefits rather than simply reducing benefits corresponding to wages earned.  Instead it ends up not being worth the effort to go to work and buy gas, etc in order to earn $64 more than one's base unemployment benefits (I based that off of a weekly $320 benefit and the 20% earnings allowance by Missouri). Think about the added revenue that could be created through taxing actual wages earned rather than unemployment wages.

I'll also be adding some insight into my experiences with networking.  I finally have the time to attend many of the events that I could never break away for due to work in the past.  It's interesting to watch the hardcore networker running around collecting as many business cards as he can and adding to his LinkedIn account, or the networker that will spend the entire event talking to the first person that said hi to them.  I am trying a more balanced approach and we'll see how well it goes.

I'll put together a few of the networking functions I'm using as well as my critique of the major internet job boards I've been using next time.