Updated 7th December 2016:
…Eight years on here I am, back on the dole and back on the blog. Comment, vent, share! Unemployment sucks, but you are certainly not alone.
Updated 4th November 2011:
I launched this blog during a long period of unemployment, which started in spring 2008. I wasn’t laid off or sacked. I had a mid-life crisis – as you do – and decided I needed a career break. I left behind a successful sales manager job at a children’s book publisher and signed up for a super-intensive NCTJ diploma course to train as a journalist.
Unfortunately, the end of my planned career break coincided with the beginning of global recession. Jobs were being cut right, left and centre. No publisher nor news room were hiring. I joined the dole queue and discovered the realities of life as an unemployed.
In spring of 2010, a year after I had resigned, my former employer lured me back into my old job…on a maternity cover contract. When the contract terminated in early 2011, and there were no prospects for a new job, I signed on with the JobCentre once again, and, man, was it harder the second time around…
Long-term unemployment can be demoralising and tends to undermine your confidence and self-esteem. I have been documenting my thoughts and experiences as a jobseeker in this blog, hoping it will help others in a similar situation. Sharing the burden makes it lighter.
From the end of October 2011, I have been working full-time again, albeit on a fixed-term contract. But this wasn’t achieved overnight and long-term unemployment took a toll on me, the effects of which I am still recovering from.
Although, technically, I am no longer on the dole, the lessons I’ve I learned are worth sharing with the world, so the blog lives on. Many people who read my blog have written to say it helped them survive rough patches during their own unemployment. Their voices keep me going.
On the dole, on the ball 