Yep, it’s true that the next Job Action Day is almost a year off, but the message from this year’s event — about taking positive action for your career is worth repeating.
I received a ton of great stories about laid-off workers who found new opportunities. These four transformed unemployment into creative entrepreneurial ventures:
Kim White
I am a single, work-at-home mom, and I homeschool my son, who has 
chronic migraines. So when I lost my position as a marketing director for a franchise expert in direct response to the stock market crash, I had to scramble. I found a graphic-design position through Craigslist pretty quickly, but the company I worked for was paying relatively little to keep my copyrights and use them on several of their high-paying websites, other than the small site they had contracted for.
When I asked that client to pay me more promptly, they fired me. Deciding that I needed to be more self-sufficient and spread my opportunities out a bit, I began building my own websites in three different subject areas (content at www.crunchydata.com, slideshows at www.fauxflix.com, and digital scrapbooking freebies at www.freequickpage.com) and started writing for content aggregator websites for residual income. I am in my third month of this venture, and am starting to see my profits increase. I definitely see myself being able to make a living this way.
I also began selling my digital designs on Etsy a couple of months ago. There were no sales for almost two months, and all of a sudden this week, I started getting orders.
The first content site I wrote for was eHow. When glitches with their payment system prevented several of us new members from earning anything the first few weeks (they resolved this), I recruited a group of like-minded people for mutual support. We are helping each other to earn more online, and we see this as one of the keys to our growing success.
I am also the national Theme Weddings Examiner and the Sacramento Digital Scrapbooking Examiner for Examiner.com.
Nancy Lynn Jarvis
The real-estate market was a mess. What was a Realtor to do?
I’m a 20-year veteran of the real-estate industry who is writing murder mysteries set in Santa Cruz County instead of selling houses. I never planned to write anything, but since I couldn’t make money as a Realtor, after having been quite successful in the past, I decided to use my experiences and have some fun. The money hasn’t been great, but my
friends who tried working through the market weren’t making much money either.
You can read the first chapters of The Death Contingency and Backyard Bones .
Real estate is an interesting business. The stress level involved in buying or selling a home ranks right after death and divorce. People reveal a lot about themselves during the process. The business attracts its share of colorful practitioners, too.
Their stories and my own experiences provide the settings where my Realtor and part-time sleuth character, Regan McHenry, works while she unravels mysteries.
After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, I worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager of Shakespeare Santa Cruz.
My work history reflects my philosophy: People should try something radically different every few years. Writing is my newest adventure.
Brian Peters
I left my job at a Japanese bank on Park Avenue in Manhattan September 2008 and used my severance package to travel around the world. Since coming home, I’ve built up a blog
and am ready to publish a book on my trip and how the goal of round the world travel is achievable to anyone — even someone who has lost their job. The blog was recently selected as one of the best round-the-world travel blogs
David Moye
I managed to get a job — and switch careers — during the worst recession since the 1930s by creating a puppet show.
When I was laid off from a journalism job in September, I decided to switch to PR.
But even though I had experience in knowing how to pitch the media and had consulted for PR agencies, a lot of places wouldn’t give me the time of day.
So I decided to show off both my knowledge of media relations and my creativity by creating a YouTube series called PR Puppet Theatre where I offered PR advice to my daughter’s puppets.
I filmed five episodes and, using the contacts in my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, got two of them featured on the CNBC.com Web site where it was called “must-see entertainment/ education for every PR flack.”
I made sure when sending out my cover letters and resumes to point out: “If I can get a cheesy puppet show on CNBC, think of what I can do for your good clients.”
That pitch helped me get my current job at Alternative Strategies, a boutique PR agency in San Diego, and I am doing a pretty good job so far. After seven months, I have pretty much broken every company record for media placements and billing.