Smokin',
There are lots of institutions that could your kinds of skills, especially in those areas with a high immigration population. Many hospitals and clinics and local governments need document translation services, as well as oral translations to patients who are getting medical services complete. While this is not a full time gig, it could be a way to get yourself some "mad money," and the patients are really grateful.

Psimet,
Sorry to hear about that. My brother is an EE manager in manufacturing in western PA, managing voltage controls and variable drives manufacturing and installation. He does have contacts and customers all over the US and world but not so much in your neck of the woods. I could look into what he might be aware of with his customers. If you are interested send me pm with particulars.

****. :(

Will keep eyes and ears open.

Psimet,

I am probably stating the obvious but i see a few jobs on chicagos's CL manufacturing section with some of the skills you mentioned.

If you haven't looked at those yet, i highly recommend you to.

Good luck, i still look around for other leads, if anyone has any IT tech support leads for a 2 year experience guy (me), please let me know, company doesn't sound good right...thus i look to leave.

These scenerio,s must end.
None of us are immune from this present situation.

Rob,

e-mail your resume K?

****ty...

I'll talk to my pappy, he's sort of in your line of work.

That would be suegra.

e-mailed to your cc account.

I did not mean to hijack Psimet's thread, but thanks all for your responses. I think this will send me in another direction that might be good. I have considered some other careers where I could use my Spanish; this is probably the push I need to explore those ideas.

I would be glad to teach any of you Spanish....Scummer, I got this hilarious mental image of us trying to ride up some stupid hill in WI and conjugating verbs all the way up! HA HA A new climbing mantra.

You can have my job, really! It pays pretty well, benefits are 'okay', and it's pretty secure against this recession. The only drawback: it sucks the life right out of you. First shift -> third shift -> first shift all in the same week. Give 'em 50 hours and they ask for 60, yet if you punch in one minute late, they put you on discipline. Yeah ... you can have my job. No problem. http://emoticons4u.com/fingers/fing04.gif (Registered Nurse - ICU)

Jeez, sorry about that! I just got laid off, too, from a Tier 1 auto supplier. I just finished my 1st week at home, playing with bikes, letting my emotions settle down, and making a plan.

I've been through now four engineering layoffs, so it's not such a great shock - one just has to figure out what's the best thing to do next, and go do it. For me it's severance, unemployment, pension, job search, financial planning. Maybe a new brevet frame if I recover well enough, monetarily!

Here in Michigan it's real important to file for unemployment. A: you might really get something. B: you get access to the state job bank. C: you've paid into the damn thing, the benefits are yours!

It's been too long since I was unemployed in Illinois, but I'd assume there is still a strong program for you to take advantage of. My mom worked in the back offices at the State of Illinois so I used to know a lot about it, but I replaced all that knowledge with important details about bike parts.

Feel free to pm me for any reason, Psimet!

Road Fan

Bingo, Chipcom, that is exactly the right resume advice!

So you guys work in Wussyville? Who'd a thunk it?

Oh my.............The ride time! Do you still have my number? Call me............I gots an Idea!

Wow man, that sucks! I went though it last April (who knew law firms laid off lawyers?!?!?)

Don't know of anything myself, but I know of some folks in your field, so if they know of anything I'll let you know. You pretty much stuck south of the Cheddar-curtain?

Psimet, SM, Road Fan ... Glad to be helpful if I can. I'm an executive recruiter. It's probably not likely that I have job leads for you, since I'm focused on a few narrow niches mostly in Madison. But I'm happy to brainstorm job-search strategy, resume and interview tips, etc.

I work with employers on hiring and obeserve their hiring decision-making behavior for a living, so I have some experience seeing what works and what doesn't.

PM me.

What narrow niches are those?

For executive recruiting:

- Investment professionals
- Legal (attorney lateral hiring and legal management/support staff)
- General management (CEO, CFO, COO, etc.)
- Nonprofit leadership (executive director, head of development, etc.)
- Healthcare executives
- Banking executives

The first 3 are areas I specialize in.

The last 3 are covered by my co-workers in the executive recruiting group.

Most of our positions are in the Madison area; all are in Wisconsin.

My employer also has a broader staffing division with temp, temp-to-hire and direct hire positions.

We do administrative, professional, lab tech, and industrial staffing in the Madison and Milwaukee areas.

We have branch offices across Wisconsin for industrial staffing.

Glad to be helpful if I can. PM me.

Hmm, i'll get back to you in 10 years :)

Actually that sounds like a great way to do long steady distance.

I'm a nerd, huh?

Thanks, sekaijin, I'll send you a pm after my ride.

Not working, time to ride!!! It's not all bad!

I'd probably frustrate you so much with my poor attempts at learning Spanish that you would just drop me :D

I wish all you guys and gals the best of luck out there. I too lost my job on October 1st. I was fortunate to start a new job November 10th. It's scary out there. I'm sure everyone has their favorite website for job searches but I found a few on indeed.com.

Good luck.