Workshops approaching

The weekend is almost here (although I honestly sometimes forget what day of the week it is; part of the joy of not working) and I'm already looking forward to next week. I don't have any job interviews scheduled, but I'm attending a San Jose Newspaper Guild meeting on Monday in San Francisco where a speaker will show us how to make money from blogging.

I'm already making a little cash from it, but want much more money. Much more.

And on Wednesday, I'm going to a workshop by former newspaper workers called "Life After Newspapers" about how to get a job after working at a paper. It looks like it could be a precursor for layoffs at my former employer, but hopefully not. It will be good to hear more ideas, network and talk with former colleagues again. I'm doing all I can to find full-time work, and until then, these type of workshops keep me energized in my job hunt and thrilled to learn more on this unchartered course I'm in.

Employer gifts

Once again, I give thanks to United Reporting for being such a kind employer. One of the bosses there sent me a box of candy with a Christmas card, note and best of all, a $50 gas card at Arco. While that may not sound like a lot to Google employees or others, it's a lot to someone like me who has spent his entire career working at newspapers. I won't again go into the meager Christmas thanks I've received at newspapers for a year's labor, but it was rarely this good, and not even close in recent years.

Working for United Reporting was the first part-time job (now at 6) that I found after being laid off at the Contra Costa Times in June. I've said it here before and I expect to say it again, but UR has treated me well and gone above and beyond in letting me know they appreciate my work.

I wrote a blog for AOL's WalletPop.com recently about gifts for the unemployed. Check it out if you want ideas for other things to give the jobless this holiday season. And take a look where yours truly ranks on WalletPop's bloggers.

Weekdays off

It's no fun looking for a fulltime job, and it's no fun having that job search in the back of your mind constantly, and it's certainly not fun without a steady income. But it is fun to be able to take a day, or at least part of a day in the middle of the week, to go do something fun and avoid the crowds.

Friday, Emma and I went to Martinez to check out the snow city workers created, and we did a little sledding. On Tuesday, the whole family jumped on BART and went to San Francisco to look at the Christmas sights. We took a trolley, a cable car and walked all around the city. Beyond the joy of visiting San Francisco, it was great to get out on a weekday afternoon and not have to fight the weekend crowds. It was a peek into what life must be like for the rich or retired, but not something I want to keep going for much longer without a regular job.

Updates on job interviews: I called an executive about a second interview, and await a callback. At another job I'm applying for, the interview for Friday was called off by the employer after a work emergency forced some delays, and they expect to call me in the next week or so to reschedule. Let's hope it happens before Christmas.

PowerPoint grad

Success at last! At least a little bit. As you can see from this beautiful Certificate of Completion, I have taken a PowerPoint 2007 class. I'm on my way to employment, I just know it.

All kidding aside, I took this class last week to improve my skills and help me in my job hunt. PowerPoint, I've come to learn from various job postings, is a skill very much in need in many of the jobs I'm applying for. And since I'm always seeking to better myself, either through volunteering, my part-time work or classes like this, I decided to make the $120 investment and take the PowerPoint class at a local adult school. It was a lot of fun and I hope to put a PowerPoint presentation together this week to e-mail to an agency I'm trying to win a contract from.

About half of the people taking the class with me were in it for the full 10 weeks, taking all of the Microsoft Suite classes that could lead to administrative assistant or similar jobs for them. Many of the people I met in the class were unemployed, like me, and said it was something they needed to either find a job or for the job they currently have.

Because of all of the classwork last week, looking for a job and doing my part-time jobs was difficult last week, but I think I'm back on track now and moving forward again. I plan to call the executive soon this week to see if an interview is forthcoming, and I have another job interview Friday. I'll post updates on those as they happen.

Return calls

I realize that often in life you have to move on when things don't go your way. But in a job hunt, it's difficult to move on and forget the job you've applied for with all your heart when you don't know what's happening with it.

For example, in the past few weeks I've had an interview and have sent my resume and other info to a few jobs that I thought I was well qualified for. I don't want to seem like a pest or desperate, but part of me wants to call the employers to try to find out what they think of my application and if the interview process can continue so I can get the job. In this rough job market, I want to go above and beyond other job candidates and stand out from a crowd. If it takes writing a sample press release or whatever, I'm up for it. But again, I don't want to seem pushy. I just want a job -- a fulltime job that I'll enjoy.

I know some companies go slow in their hiring. I had an interview two weeks ago at a public agency and while I made the initial cut, I'm waiting for the executive director to hopefully call me back for another interview. I'll give him a call soon, and hope to prove to him that I can do the job and am eager to start working. I've also applied for a few jobs that I think I'd be perfect for -- writing jobs and such -- and I'm trying to contact them to appeal for them to look at my resume and get moving forward on hiring me.

But the question remains: How soon is too soon to call and at what point are you a pain in the neck for asking how to get yourself to the front of the line?

The power of working for AOL

It's amazing what having a job, although a small one, with Internet giant AOL can do. Not only am I getting paid to write about personal finance at AOL's WalletPop.com Web site, but my personal blog about looking for work in these troubled economic times is seeing a huge increase in page hits, etc. since I started writing for WalletPop on Nov. 11. And thus my money from Google's AdSense program is turning from a few cents into a few dollars.

For example, the number of "page impressions" on Nov. 10, the day before I started the AOL job, was 30 for this blog. The next day it jumped to 121. The highest has been 262 on Nov. 19. But more important are the number of "clicks," which I'm still trying to figure out what they mean to AdSense. But they reached a daily high of 13 on Nov. 30, equating to $12.81 for me on that one day. People are reading my blog, and it's starting to pay.

But possibly better than that is the fact that more people, and hopefully employers, are taking a look at what I'm doing. I've received some positive feedback from some readers lately, wishing me luck on the job search and some have shared their job hunt tales with me.

If you don't want to miss my musings on personal finance, bookmark my postings at WalletPop and keep up. And if you have story ideas on how the economy is affecting your spending, e-mail them to me.

Ho, ho, ho

Another month arrives, probably the favorite month of the year for a lot of people, and I'm trying all I can to look forward to it without a full-time job in hand. As I've written here before, it's difficult to relax and enjoy things when at the back of my mind is the constant dread of having to either look for work or at least do something to improve my chances of landing a job.

For example, today I started taking a week-long PowerPoint class. It's a skill that is often called upon in the business world. I also spent some time today doing a mock interview for a second interview that I hope will come for a job I recently applied for. Then after Emma went to bed about an hour ago, I'm applying for a job someone kindly forwarded to me on LinkedIn. Other than taking care of the kid, most of the day, from 8 a.m. to now, has been spent preparing for a job, interview and applying for yet another job. I realize there are plenty of seeds to be planted before I find a job, but it's getting tiresome.

And I don't want to waste time in December because I expect that within two weeks companies will basically shut down for the year as far as hiring goes. I can't imagine they get much done from the week of Christmas through the first week of the new year.