I like this. David Jones was recently laid off from his day job and decided to write a book about his experiences in the hope that it might help others in the same position. The book is called “Oh No: I’ve Lost My Job What Am I Going To Do?” and was written in just a few days.
Last week he was on Newstalk talking about his book when he was contacted by Maryrose Lyons from Brightspark Consulting who suggested that a website would really help his book. I’ll let Gordon continue, he’s one of the team who built the site:
Maryrose gathered a team together consisting of Rachel Earley (Website Graphic designer) , David McDonald (Book Graphic Designer), David Duignan (Photographer), Alex Gibson (Award winning Podcaster ) and myself to put the site together and make the functional stuff like Paypal work.
And so was born Joblessandproud.com. Today, for one day only, you can download David’s book for free. It’s only €4.99 anyway, a steal at that price.
It also has a blog, I’m glad to see powered by WordPress. I’m going to subscribe and see what David makes of this opportunity. It’s wonderful to see that WordPress is part of this venture.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
That is a really good looking site and I wish David success inhis career.
I like the graphics for the books and blog, I have a series of IT Career Books to help me transition to IT Careers because right now, the IT Career Industry is doing much better than the rest of the economy.
Obver the last 24 hours, I ahve gotten about 5 calls or more about job postings in Saint Louis, MO and job postings as far away as the East Coast.
Anyway, I would like to start a relationship with the graphic designers for the ebook that could lead to them doing something similar for my site: it-career-coach.net .
Perhaps you can introduce me to them?
Thank you
This is a great resource for anyone who has lost their job, no matter where you live – the tips that David has filled the book with are universal. I’m glad to see that in addition to practical information about budgeting, saving, and job hunting, that he also addresses the emotional and psychological toll that unemployment takes on you.
After losing my job and seeing the long lines at the unemployment office when I went to file; and hearing the stories of those in line with me, and the desperation in their voices, I set up http://UnemploymentHandbook.com as a resource and community for people who have recently lost their jobs.
There are a number of different technologies used on the site: WordPress for the blog, Joomla for the articles, vBulletin for forum; but ultimately the site is all about helping people get through the difficulties of unemployment.
I don’t know anything about html or programming, but all of the technologies I use on the site were easy to get running. I’ve got to give WordPress most of the credit though. If I had not used WordPress to set up a small personal blog first, I would never have had the confidence to try a more involved project like UnemploymentHandbook.com.
Aww dang, I missed the free download by a couple of hours….
Writing and selling a book for €4.99 is his way dealing with unemployment Donncha.
I’ve been on job seekers benefit, since May 2007, jobseekers allowance since July 2008 and currently on back to education allowance. Which is where hopefully I will remain until I graduate in 2012 and hopefully ending my dependence on social welfare.
When it comes to dealing with your entitlements then then your local social services office is your first and only port of call. Not lining the pockets of some one who will only point out the obvious.
BTW the two comments above me (Kingsley and Greg) look very spammy!
I just wrote a few posts on using Web 2.o to help your resume and personal profile. I think people will them useful.
Web 2.0 Resume Tips for Recessionary Times:
http://www.kenmorico.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/web-20-resume-tips-for-recessionary-times/
Quit Looking for a Job – How to Use Web 2.0 to Get Found:
http://www.kenmorico.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/quit-looking-for-a-job-how-to-use-web-20-to-get-found/
Robert – well obviously it’s for profit but these days there are lots of people who are unemployed for the very first time in their lives. My wife says she saw a middle aged man dressed in a suit with a suitcase standing outside the dole office in Cork looking lost.
True about the comments, but both came from WordPress dashboards so at least they’re on-topic.
See you on Saturday 🙂
True Donncha,
I suppose fair play to anyone who can make a go of anything during these times.
I’m looking forward to meeting you on Saturday as well!
@Greg,
I was just browsing through your site and I have to say that I like what I see. I wish you the best of luck with it. And I really like your WordPress theme. I think you might be underselling yourself regarding your web skills 🙂
Lose a job? Write a book? Yep, been there. Did that!
I was a victim of the dotcom bomb years ago, yet I look back at getting “set free” (laid off) as one of the best days of my life. For it was on that day I began a Spirit-led journey. Amazing and true!
Now we’re all back ‘there’ again. But you know, in time, This Too Shall Pass!
Losing a job is one of those defining moments in life. We can choose to lose our way (our minds), or we can rise to the challenge and follow what our Spirit tells us to do.
Remember: We are more than a statistic on the news.
As I was told the day I got “set free” from my job:
“This is a new chapter in your life. WRITE ONE HELL OF A CHAPTER!”
FREE (no strings) download: http://…..
Simply my way of ‘giving back’!
take care,
Louise Lewis, author
No Experts Needed: The Meaning of Life According to You!
Yes Louise, you’ve hit it right on the head. When I lost my job last November (for the second time in the same year) I just shut the doom and gloom on TV, radio and in the newspapers out of my mind and got on with it…I forged ahead, applying for everything I could find to do with truck driving, and landed another job within two weeks. When we get lucky, it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. It’s a serious challenge and we must fight back and rise to it.
I just had to let through that comment by Louise. Akismet marked it as spam, but I checked my logs and saw she’s “using” MSIE 6 on Windows 98 apparently.
Looks like she hasn’t moved on from the bursting of the dotcom bubble ..
Seems to me that Louise may be posting from a computer legitimately, but it doesn’t mean it’s not spam.
Maybe it’s just Musubi.
I wanna stress that even though the economy is in a bad stress, the IT industry is doing relatively well.
If you doubt me, go to Dice.com and type in SQL and you will see the number of jobs posted on DICE for that.
His story is very similar to mine, though I’ve yet to write a book. I lost my job a few months back, so I started a blog about what it’s like to be laid off and unemployed. I’ve been laid off 4 times in the last 8 years. My blog is called Jobless and Less (www.joblessandless.com). Have a look.
I wonder if David Jones is looking for a sales graph for his book, he could probably take a look at this for starters:
http://www.statusireland.com/statistics/finacial-statistics-for-ireland/28/Irish-Live-Register-Figures.html
Ran into a bit of a problem with the download. This is on an Apple Macbook Air. Safari wants to download and open .pdf’s in Adobe Acrobat, but if you need to download and install this software the oh-no.pdf this you’ve already retrieved it.
🙁
Just posted this blog on Linkedin to see if can help others.
“Oh No: I’ve Lost My Job What Am I Going To Do?â€
This book sounds interesting. I will look for at book store today. Thank.
John M
Interesting points. And I’d like to see where we would be if Bush was still in office and we didn’t have obama’s stimulus package!