Successful Unemployment

Announcing the Lucky Winners of the Successful Unemployment Toolkit!

The winners will receive an e-mail from me with instructions on downloading the toolkit in the .zip file.  They can start listening to the mp3 tracks and reading the Reference Guide today, and can begin to Increase their Professional value by the end of the day!

If you are one of the 5 Winners listed at the end of this post, here is what you will receive as part of your Toolkit:

1. An mp3 recording of my seminar Successful Unemployment—10 Steps You Need to Take NOW to Increase Your Professional Value

During this seminar, I will give you 10 specific action itemsthat you can start implementing immediately. These steps are guarantied to:

• Get the skills that set you apart from the rest of the job seekers in your field
• Greatly increase your interviewing skills
• Help dramatically improve your resume
• Increase your opportunities for professional development
• Provide many more opportunities for employment

2. Successful Unemployment Reference Guide (pdf format)

• Includes over 25 websites and references
• These are URLs of organizations that you NEED to know about and become a part off, in order to grow professionally.
• Publications referenced in this guide will give additional information on ways to increase your professional development in a technical field as well as help inspire and motivate you.

If you did not win this time, you can still begin to develop yourself as a science, engineering or technology professional by purchasing the toolkit here:  http://successfulunemploymenttoolkit.com/wpmain/order-now/

And Now for the WINNERS:

1) Fa-Gung Fan

2) Suleiman Oloriegbe

3) Fulufhelo Masithulela

4) Karna Barquist

5) Waldemir Queiroz

If your name is on this list, you are a subscriber to this blog AND have connected with me via Linkedin OR Twitter. Within the next few hours you will be receiving a download link from me. Congrats to all of the winners!

Dear Readers,

Many of you who have listen to the audio part of the Successful Unemployment Toolkit, know the importance of public speaking, when it comes to finding or keeping a job as a science or engineering professional.

Now I would like to offer You an opportunity to be a presenter at the American Chemical Society Fall 2010 National Meeting and Exposition in Boston.

I am organizing a session at 2010 ACS Fall meeting, titled: Computer Modeling – The Wave of the Future. The session is co-sponsored by the Division of Computers in Chemistry, Division of Chemical Information, and Division for Small Chemical Business.

Why you should care:

I am selecting speakers for this session and it is a wonderful chance  for many of you to:

-Present yourself as an expert in chemistry, biochemistry, engineering and/OR small business development area

-Network with industry professionals in chemical, biochemical and engineering industry

-Grow professionally

-Boost your resume

-Learn what’s new in the chemistry field

-Develop you communication skills

Why might you want to do any of these things? (If you do not know the answer already, you REALLY need the info in my Toolkit!) All of the above can be instrumental in helping you get a job, grow your business, or help you become a more valued industry professional.

What you need to qualify:

- Ability to travel to Boston and attend ACS meeting on August 22-26 (you’ll be responsible for your own travel expenses).

-Be working (or have worked) in area of computer modeling that has something to do with chemistry, biochemistry, biology or chemical or bio engineering

- Be able to say something about how modeling and simulation can help small businesses (I’d be happy to help you with this part, just contact me at masha@mvpmodelingsolutions.com, if you’re stuck on this one)

I am interested! What to do next:

If you have any questions for me about presenting at ACS, please submit them in comments below. I promise to answer all of them! If you are seriously thinking of presenting, please contact me at masha@mvpmodelingsolutions.com.

Finally, please pass the link to this post to any of your colleagues or friends who are looking to grow as a technical professional!

Best of luck!

I am watching the snow fall on the outstretched cornfields of the American Midwest. It is 10° F outside, and after seven years in Southern California, living here seems inhumane.

After my husband’s new job brought us to Illinois a year ago, I needed employment that would not depend on my physical location. Something that would allow me to follow my husband around the country (his new job requires traveling) and at the same time let me to make money, expand my mind, and use my technical experience.

“I know!” I thought. “I will start my own company!” I’ll just have to do a bit of marketing, a bit of sales, and a bit of engineering. I have done all three successfully before, so how hard would it be to do it all again? Except this time, it would be on my own terms. The idea seemed brilliant. MVP Modeling Solutions, LLC was born, followed closely by the Successful Unemployment Toolkit.

There has been a substantial increase in technical consultants over the past year. As layoffs became more frequent and search for jobs more difficult, many technical professionals decided to become consultants, or start their own companies.

Like most of these budding entrepreneurs, I was not prepared for what was to come. Just as I planned, there were marketing, sales, and engineering activities…but there were also extreme emotional swings that I did not consider before starting to work for myself.

There are times while running my business when I feel on top of the world. When I land a consulting project, or run a successful marketing campaign, or a happy customer lets me know how much he appreciated my help – that success is purely mine. There was no boss to guide me in planning, no co-workers to make corrections. It is a very different kind of “high” that you would never feel when working for someone else.

Unfortunately, with the very high “highs” come very low “lows”. There are days, like today, when I am watching the falling snow thinking about business plans for 2010 and doubting every single idea that comes into my head. I am not smart enough to run a whole company… I am not creative enough to figure out how to tie it all together… I don’t have enough sales/marketing/engineering experience and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter…Do I even want to do this?… Whoever decided that it was legal to make people live in 10°F weather?

I can’t go to my non-existent boss and ask him to help me define my business goals, because I am the boss. I can’t meet a co-worker at a water cooler and moan about how the cold weather sucks and should be illegal. I am my co-workers. This makes it much harder to pull myself out of the self-employment “lows”.

When you are working for yourself and you don’t feel like getting up in the morning, no one will drag you out of bed. Sleep all you want. You do not have to explain yourself to anyone. And that can be exhilarating and excruciatingly difficult at the same time. If you are thinking of becoming a consultant, or starting your own company, be prepared for this emotional rollercoaster. There are days when I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning because the idea of how much there is do to and how difficult it will be to do it, is overwhelmingly daunting.

During those days, there is one thought that keeps me going. That thought is that tomorrow will be a better day. Maybe even one of those exhilarating days – all I have to do it get up, open up my calendar, and start checking things off my to do list one step at a time. If you have recently become self-employed and are experiencing similar doubts, I recommend you do the same. Before you know it, your business coach calls with some great ideas, happy customers let you know that you are making a difference, a consulting contract gets accepted, and you are back on a “high” again.

During those times it seems that freezing at the 10°F is well worth it to see the beautiful snow cover the cornfields.