Be supportive of purchases that will help the job search. There are many ways a couple coping with a layoff can learn to save money—ours included using entertainment coupon programs to allow occasional eating out, and changing our electricity provider to save money on our electric bill (see my post Save Money to Invest: Shop for Electricity)—but skimping on job search resources should not be one of them if at all avoidable. Because my wife had previously been assigned company IT equipment, she found herself without a cell phone or laptop when she was laid off. My cell phone was on its last legs, so we spent the evening after her exit interview buying spanking new iPhones for each of us under a family plan. I also suggested that we purchase a laptop for her so she could work on her job search out of the house. She ended up doing most of her job search on the laptop, and the call with the job offer came to her iPhone.
Encourage your spouse to seek job search advice from a number of sources. The employment environment today has challenges that have not been seen in a generation, and in the most severely affected locations several generations. That being the case, it’s fair to assume that any one expert is not likely to have all the answers, though many will have very helpful information. Accordingly, job seekers should seek advice from multiple sources, and then use their best judgment on what to do. As part of her severance package my wife received outplacement services from a major outplacement firm, which while helpful in some respects were lacking in others. I encouraged her to contact a career coach I had used, and she did. Since my wife was applying for jobs in industries where she had never worked, the coach suggested that she write a “functional” resume structured with headings that described her skills, as opposed to chronologically listing her jobs. Most of her interviews, including the interview for the position she accepted, came when she had used her functional resume.
Do little things that will help make your spouse’s day easier. There are probably many things you can do that will require little or no effort on your part that will make a huge difference for your job-seeking spouse. Something that made a big difference for my wife, particularly during periods when she was not getting any responses, was asking her if she wanted to have lunch with me during the day. It made her feel much better to get out of the house to meet me downtown than just staying home and spinning her wheels.
[...] How to Help Your Unemployed Spouse Find a New Job After a Layoff [...]
Thanks I really needed this.