Lesson 1: Why you should Make Yourself a +1

Yesterday I bit the metaphorical bullet.

Rather than the soft-landing switcharoo to a new workplace as I had assumed would happen, it has now been 4 months since my last pay packet at Company S. It is a hazy line... 4 months of taking on pro quo consultancy, translating, interpreting and tour guiding jobs to save eroding my savings base whilst seeking a full time job... yesterday it fully occurred to me that I didn't care about where the line was anymore, I had crossed it somewhere, and had rights to becoming the statistic that until now I had denied myself.. long-term unemployment +1.

This is the moment when you hear the monthly unemployment statistics, and feel cheated, feel cheated that your +1 is not sitting there like a rose in bloom, a flower to influence interest rates and Government fiscal strategy. So how does one become a +1?

Having envisioned that I would have to dust off my worn Levis and faded flannelette's, make my way down to Centrelink and join a queue of miscreants and the others who weren't ex-investment bankers, a quick web check proved otherwise.

2 phone calls and I had been connected to the Job Pathways program Not only was I now a +1, but Centrelink had also arranged a meeting with Kathy at Job Prospects, a professional job support agency, for 10am the next morning. I'm just back from my meeting with Kathy... I am feeling buoyed - like I have been hobbling around ignoring a set of crutches that the Australian Government has very nicely taken the time and effort to make available. Kathy spent 40 minutes going through my track record, and with her understanding of local market conditions, we have now realigned my strategy to include SMEs as well as the large corporate jackoffs, who in Kathy speak," had once been small and medium enterprises themselves". So my 24 hours of being a +1 has been fantastic... and i have had a great chance to test-run the Australian support system for unemployed first hand: Chappeau to all the other Kathies out there, working across all systems and doing a fantastic job.