One Household, Two Pink Slips. The Wall Street Journal
GoliathJobs was featured in the Wall Street Journal on May 12, 2009. Article titled "One Household, Two Pink Slips."
MANAGING YOUR CAREER
One Household, Two Pink Slips.
Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.
By Joann Lublin 
Double pink slips are proliferating, causing a double dose of trouble for affected couples. More people than ever are looking for work right now, complicating job searches and aggravating the emotional and financial setback of losing two incomes. Both the husband and the wife were jobless in 124,000 families last year, up from the 87,000 families with the same dilemma in 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But as the experience of some couples shows, being unemployed at the same time can give partners a double shot of support in finding employment. Practical assistance ranges from sharing networking introductions and outplacement services to interview role-playing. Even the idea of relocating may be easier to manage when one partner doesn't have to quit a job to follow the other.
Highly involved spouses "curtail the length of the dual unemployment," says David Mezzapelle, founder of JobsOver50.com, a free Web site. He recommends jobless couples closely scrutinize each other's lists of contacts -- even if they toiled in different industries. He finds the tactic frequently results in more interviews, improved networking and a job for one or both spouses.
David Mezzapelle - Founder, Director of Marketing & Development. Staff photo by Monique Comfort.
A Connecticut couple began swapping contacts after they both got laid off late last year -- she from her job as a loan manager for GE Capital, a unit of General Electric Co., and he from his job as a UBS AG officer. With an enlarged network, "it is amazing how much further you can dig," she observes. (The couple requested anonymity.)
Her husband discovered that his wife's former boss at GE Capital is married to a financial adviser for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. He used that connection to land interviews there for himself last month -- and began work May 4 as a wealth manager. In turn, he opened doors for his wife by contacting acquaintances at International Business Machines Corp. and Mercedes-Benz Credit Corp. She sent them her résumé, then got a Mercedes interview for an analyst's position. She started her new job there last Wednesday.
Mock job interviews represent another mutual-assistance strategy for unemployed couples. Pose unexpected questions to your husband or wife that a would-be employer asked you, says Lynne A. Sarikas, head of the M.B.A. Career Center for Northeastern University's business school.
Some people resent a spouse telling them "you're sitting weirdly" during such sessions, however. With videotaping, their annoyance typically vanishes. The ex-UBS officer unsuccessfully encouraged his wife to relax more during her pretend interviews. But "once we started videotaping the sessions, he was able to point out my less-relaxed nuances," she recalls. "I am careful to avoid those flaws now."
In many households with unemployed marital partners, one of the partner's previous employer provides outplacement counseling. The counseled individual should request informal coaching for the displaced mate, too.
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