Looking for a Job? Maximize it!

Here are 10 things you can do while you're looking for a job:

1) Work on your resume and ask friends and other professionals to look it over and give you their comments. Offer to volunteer and share your knowledge with organizations you're interested in as a way to get noticed. Think of a project you'd like to work on and tell them about it in an email.

2) Subscribe to a local area jobs website. I don't like national level sites because they seem to have lots of lame jobs and few in your area for some reason, just my opinion.

3) Apply for something with the federal, state and local governments. You'll get on their databases and some agencies send updates when their job postings change. Go ahead and visit the Employment Development Department, you never know, you might even have unemployment benefits that you're eligible for.

4) Tell everyone you know that you are looking for work. Many people don't like to do this actually because they don't want to appear weak to people they may have known a long time, or they may not want to let everyone know they are out of work. What you can do is think of a project you'd like to do and talk about that, another technique is to just ask people how they got to their occupation and this may open them up to talking about how to get in somewhere they know of.

5) Apply to large organizations only if you respect them and their work. You will likely have a boss that does something you don't like and will enter at the bottom so you need to have maximum personal satisfaction.

6) Get some learning in. This could be school, an online course, or reading a new book every month. You need to be learning and keeping your mind sharp, and you may discover a new passion or get trained in a new industry this way. It helps make you feel like you're doing something while you wait.

7) Devote a few hours every week to walking an area you'd like to work in and checking out classifieds, you need to get out and can get ideas this way.

8) Spend time learning about financial planning. You can make a lot of money through investing smartly, reducing taxes, having the right insurance strategy, thinking about retirement and estate planning. No better time to do it than right now, whatever stage of life you're in. While you're at it check out all the ways you can make money, like rents, royalties, licensing, dividends, and building a portfolio. Don't be afraid to pay for professional help if you need it.

9) Start a personal business. Consulting, online, temporary, seasonal, handyman, flea markets and fairs, something that will get reported on a Schedule C. Even when you get something regular going again you can keep this as something on the side to supplement your income in addition to your new job. Some people consider franchises, I would advise against this unless you have a lot of money and energy to burn; mostly you are buying into a job with another boss and lots of restrictions and the money up front can be a lot. Don't sell any long term assets to finance a new venture.

10) Create categories and track your monthly cash expenditures. I use the following categories but you can add/delete the ones as needed:

Business
House/rent/groceries
Gas/auto
Entertainment
Education
Investments
Dine out
Clothing
Gifts
Insurance
Debts
Health

This is so useful and people are always amazed at how much they actually spend on things as a percentage of their income. Tracking your spending almost always results in self discipline and you'll save money that way.