How to Answer: “What Have You Been Doing Since You Were Laid Off?”
When you first lost your job, you spent your time wallowing in your sorrows — eating ice cream in your pajamas and watching Judge Judy all afternoon. Then, your determination kicked in, and you decided to find a new job. You perused job boards, polished up your résumé, searched for old co-workers on LinkedIn … and occasionally watched Judge Judy all afternoon.
While this may be the truth about what you’ve been doing since your last job ended, telling this to a recruiter probably won’t be all that impressive. Though looking for a job is an admirable and necessary task for those out of work, telling a recruiter about your job search won’t set your apart from the pack. Chances are — every other candidate interviewing for the position has been looking for a job as well.
So how do you answer the “What have you been doing” question in an interesting, unique and truthful manner?
Focus on activities you’ve been involved with
For example, if you have three kids, tell the recruiter how you’ve been able to serve as team parent for your child’s soccer team since you have more free time. Or, if you’ve spent your extra time going to the gym, talk about how you’ve been focusing on improving your health. These things show that you’re making the best out of a less-than-ideal situation.
Activities like volunteering and part-time work can also yield transferrable job skills. If you’ve been helping out a local charity with their online marketing efforts, or putting in 20 hours a week as a part-time receptionist, relate the experience to the job you’re applying for.
“There are tons of transferrable skills that are gained from volunteer work and unpaid projects,” says Dr. Susan Fletcher, psychologist and author of “Working in the Smart Zone.” “Community involvement, events you’ve participated in or even been in charge of, volunteer boards you’ve served on and organizations you’ve been a member of provide a network and skill set similar to a paying job,” she says.
Highlight self-improvement
Have you been reading up on your industry in an effort to stay current? Did you recently start a blog about your field or try your hand at consulting?
“Our chief technology officer likes to ask people what they learned last month,” says Daniel Ruby, research director at Chitka, an advertising company. “[Whether it be] a new coding language or a new database structure — keeping up on the latest emerging skill sets is a very good sign that this is someone we want to hire.”
Showing an interviewer that you’ve been developing your skill set while unemployed demonstrates that you are motivated, interested in furthering your career and have a passion for your industry. “We’ve interviewed several people who were laid off and had been unemployed for a while,” Ruby says. “Personally, I like to hear about entrepreneurial ventures they’ve tried, whether it’s building an ad-powered website, starting an online store, etc. Like many tech firms, we love seeing the entrepreneurial spirit in someone — if they started a company and failed, that’s great, because they started a company and were actively working to control their own destiny.”
Lay the groundwork
You can’t give an interesting answer to the question “What have you been doing since you were laid off?” if you haven’t been doing anything interesting. Although it may be hard to concentrate on anything but finding a job, it shouldn’t be your sole focus. Taking on volunteer activities, signing up for a class that will improve your skills, doing contract work or joining a job-search support group will not only help you keep your sanity while you’re unemployed, but will also make you more attractive to potential employers.
Kaitlin Madden is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com and its job blog, The Work Buzz. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues. Follow @CBForJobSeekers on Twitter.
August 25th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Kaitlin:
This is one of the first articles that has helped me since being laid off. Most are bait and switch schemes.I have volunteered for my church since being laid off in several capacities, took advantage of the Workforce Central Florida stimulus job program that allowed me to work for three months, and am currently helping my church reasearch costs to start a church Thrift Shop,although I have never started a business. Although these have all been learning experiences,I felt an employer would see this as a waste of time that could have been better spent pounding the pavement, and applying for more jobs on the internet – beyond what I was already doing daily. We job seekers are sending hundreds of rewritten resumes and revamped cover letters to fit the different positions on a daily basis while receiving no acknowledgments. If the key words they are looking for don’t pass through their screening process, the hiring person never even sees our resume or cover letter. If I can’t get a response from these employers with years of worthy experience, I don’t imagine many other people are being helped either. Then there are the jobs that aren’t really jobs at all but rather, justifications for HR departments to keep their jobs. The jobs are either filled from within, but the outside posting is required, or they are not filled at all. Although your article brought out great points, why don’t you research and let us know how to get our resume seen so we can get the interview to share what we have been doing. I feel we have made a huge mistake with the internet and jobs. If employers would stop placing blind ads that refer to the WEB, the unemployed could have actual opportunities to know who they are applying to and take the steps that have been basic for years to secure a real job with a real person instead of wasting hours throwing out personal information that can be intercepted by the wrong people while the resumes go to places that never actually see them. With each one I send out, I receive another 10 pieces of junk mail.