LaidOffCamp was an “unconference” or a “BarCamp“, where the conference sessions are put on and discussed by the event’s participants. This allows a lot of openness, community-building, and networking at all of these events. If you haven’t been to a BarCamp, I highly recommend it! You’ll be sure to take something from the event, feeling positive and productive, and you’ll get to meet folks that have the same interest as you!

I learned a lot of great information at LaidOffCamp and thought it would be beneficial for everyone to know! Below are the notes I took so I could share with YOU. Hope it helps! :)

(If you’re looking for information and resources about to do after being laid off, you can also read my Layoff Survival Guide.)

Interesting Sessions I Attended:

• “Forming a Corporation or LLC”
• “Freelancing Tools”
• “Resume 2.0″
• “Networking 101/Personal Branding”
• “Be a Yes (in this “No” Economy)”

Unfortunately, each session was only about 30-45 minutes, which I felt wasn’t ample time to fully wrap up topics and discussions. Nevertheless, each session provided much shared information and great ideas!

Forming a Corporation or LLC

This session wasn’t necessarily what I was interested in, but seemed more informative for me than the other sessions going on. Thus, I might not fully understand all the terminology nor fully understand the reasoning behind it all. Either way, I just wanted to share in case you’d be interested!

• Keep a separate bank account for your business. This is easier for accounting purposes.
• Open an account with a Credit Union
• Track your expenses. Some services you can use: Mint.com and Outright.com
• Marketing:
  • Create a LOGO – this is your identity
  • Slogans, mascots
  • Business cards (see more below)
  • Promote yourself: go to tradeshows where there’s people of different backgrounds. Social Networking!
  • “Any PR = Good PR”
• Be extremely careful of your reputation: online reputation management.
• Business cards: make it professional. VistaPrint.com offers free business cards, where you just have to pay for shipping.
• Do your homework first before you name your business! Make sure there’s no name conflicts in your county/nationwide. The county clerks will not check if there are conflicts in name. You can check for trademarks with your Secretary of State, the US Patent and Trademark Office, Googling the name. Also make sure that there are no logo conflicts.

Also, here is a Self-Employment Tax Calendar, provided by Outright.com, which I think is an awesome resource!

Freelancing Tools

I was highly interested in this Freelancing session, so I ended up taking a lot of notes for this. The session was headed by Duncan from Workstir, Josh from oDesk, and Travis from Werkadoo. A short session but a lot of great information shared:

• Drafting Contracts

  Tips and advice to make sure you’re legally protected as a freelancer:

  Always get the terms on paper!
  Verbal and written contracts are binding.

  Scope
  This is extremely important! Make sure the scope is laid out. Include the tasks that are necessary to be completed and the hours needed for each. Also have on paper the milestones of the project.

  Change Requests
  Always include a methodology for change requests. (e.g. “If changes occur, the process should be…”) Also, if you need to increase the hours/billing, what is the process for this?

  Payment
  Never wait until the project is done to get paid. Have them pay 1/2 up-front and 1/2 at the end of the job. Give an estimate how of many hours this would take, and ask them to pay half up-front.

  Types of contracts:

  • Timed and materials — the preferred method. This is charging your employer per hour for your services.
  • Fixed price — a flat-rate for your services.

  To receive some help, you can try contacting lawyers directly to see if they’d help you for free until you have enough money.

• Calculating Your Rate

  At the minimum, figure out your standard of living. Keep in consideration these factors:

  • Monthly insurance costs
  • Rent/Living costs
  • Monthly food costs
  • Etc.

  Freshbooks.com
  Also, track your time! Freshbooks provides an invoicing system where you input your hours.

• Filing Taxes as a Freelancer

  1099 Forms
  This is the IRS form to fill out when reporting your freelance/contractor income. If you’ve earned more than $600 from your employer for your freelancing/contractor services, the employer has to file a 1099 form. For more information about this, I found this really helpful site: FreshBooks.com – Get Your Clients to Report Your Freelance Income Using Form 1099 On Time.

  Again, here is Outright.com’s Self-Employment Tax Calendar, a pretty useful and important resource!

  Other Tax/Filing Tips
  - Ask a CPA or accountant if you have any questions about what/how to file your freelance/contractor work
  - Look for volunteer grad students that are studying to be CPA/accountants–they’re available to help with your taxes too

• Finding Clients

  Workstir
  A place where business can find freelancers and contractors with ratings, and where freelance and contractors can find jobs. This is a FREE service.

  Werkadoo
  “A remote working environment built for the people by the people. Join the movement in ditching the cubicle, and werk efficiently by working remotely.”

  oDesk
  “A global service marketplace for small and medium sized business to hire, manage, and pay remote freelancers or teams.”

  Self-Marketing
  Reach out and talk to people. Provide a service.

• Converting from Contractor to Full-Time

  Make it clear from the start that you’re interested in the Full-Time position, but you’d be willing to do contract work. Suggest projects/jobs for them that are opportunities for them–BUILD VALUE.

Resume 2.0

A very unique and memorable ideas, lead by Dale Larson (@dalelarson) and Marcus Ronaldi (@hydra1970). The BLOG and YOUTUBE ideas were the ones that stuck out the most for me.

• Social Bookmarking
• LinkedIn – join groups
• Embed your resume and job descriptions into your Facebook and Twitter Feeds
• ResumeBucket
• Have a Public Resume
  • Take out your address, keep the city name
  • Include the area codes you’re interested working in
  • Include your email address and LinkedIn address
• Using a BLOG as a form of expertise — Think of the blogs you visit regularly. Would you hire that blogger without even seeing their resume?
• YOUTUBE — Create a video to represent yourself, like a cover letter. Include your field of expertise.
• GlobalPitch.com — A visual CV
• In Word Docs for your resume, never put your contact information in the Header of the .doc! It can often very and get lost when people view it on their computers.

Networking 101 / Personal Branding

This session, led by Edith Yeung (@edithsan), was a very engaging session. I actually didn’t take many notes for this session as I was mostly listening, but Edith’s biggest point were these:

• GIVE and OFFER yourself — this is the best way to connect with people because you’re doing something for THEM
• Reword what you want to something THEY want.

Be a “Yes!” in a “No” Economy

This session was led by Adryenn Ashley (@adryenn) from Wow! Is Me: Monetizing Your Passion.

• Find what you’re good at, and make money from that.
• Work on your OWN dream, not someone else’s!
  Get the idea out of your head and take ACTION
• Consider: why should people believe in you? Why should they LIKE you?

Per my previous post, I started an email thread with some of my former colleagues yesterday, the day after we all got laid off, so that we could keep in contact with each other, while also pooling our unemployment resources and knowledge together. Here are some things we’ve done and discussed:

1. File for Unemployment IMMEDIATELY

CA Unemployment Webpage: http://www.edd.ca.gov/Unemployment/default.htm

Per batz’s suggestion, it’s important to file for unemployment immediately because it may take a while to process. This takes at least 30 minutes, and wasn’t too difficult to understand/fill out.

Former part-timers: YES, you are eligible for unemployment insurance and you should file ASAP.

One of the questions I got kinda stuck on: Question 33d about the “Wages Earned” for my previous positions. I found my answer here. Since Embark pays out twice a month, I wasn’t sure whether to calculate per week or month. As long as the numbers match, I don’t think it makes a difference.

2. Finding Insurance Coverage

This is different for everyone. So far, it seems like COBRA is extremely expensive for us to afford (I’ve heard that it would be around $300/month for some folks to continue our previous insurance coverage).

One of us was able to find a “temporary” insurance for now with Blue Shield:

Blue Shield was pretty good to me on insurance. I got a plan that has a moderate deductible and high coinsurance BUT allows a few Doctor visits a year for a small copay. Perfect for those without major health ailments in case you want to go to the doctor every so often and be covered in case of an accident. I got Value 900 plan (and the fact that you already HAVE insurance via Embark currently for 2 more days through them could help you get accepted).

Also, regarding paying cash for medical visits:

As for purchasing individual insurance, in my personal experience it actually turns out cheaper to pay cash. Many medical providers have substantial discounts for cash patients.
For instance, [this clinic has] this plan: http://marinermedical.com/vip.htm
There is also this place, although I have never dealt with them: http://www.quickhealth.com/faq.htm

When I was a part-timer, btw, I had insurance with Blue Cross/Shield(?) that was the minimal life insurance that would pay for any emergency hospital fees, but it didn’t include coverage for any doctor visits or medication. That was $62/mo for me, but I’m unsure of the pricing for the plan anymore these days. Also, my dad was able to find this via an agent, so I’m unsure if this is a publicly available plan somewhere.

For the ladies: I was concerned about birth control coverage and someone suggested:

If you go to a free clinic and when filling out the paperwork you just have to indicate that you would like to keep your files confidential and so you would qualify for Health Access Program card. Basically this would cover your prescription costs since the state would pay for it all.

Also regarding birth control coverage: I was talking to another friend regarding birthcontrol coverage, and she reminded me about Planned Parenthood: http://www.plannedparenthood.org. Planned Parenthood is all about providing services to uninsured folks, or at lower prices. (I think I’m gonna find general insurance coverage, and then go to Planned Parenthood for the extra stuff.)

Edit (02/02/09): It is BEST to apply for new insurance so that there are no breaks in-between; applying for continuous insurance coverage may be key to even getting the coverage. Per Scott’s comment below:

If you have any long term conditions that you may need treatment for in the future (and have received treatment for in the past) you should NEVER allow any gaps in insurance. i.e. do not rely on paying cash for medical visits.

If you are ever uninsured for a period however brief, when you apply for insurance in the future, the insurance companies are able to label some things as pre-existing conditions, meaning they will not cover them. They cannot do that if you have continuous coverage.

3. Figuring Out the Severance Package

(Former Part-Timers: we did not get severance packages)

I’ve read this all over the place, and this seems to be one of those huge things to really consider and think through before signing anything.

If you have not seen a separation agreement before, I urge you to read it carefully. There are important rights you are giving up if you sign it. It is very beneficial to Embark for you to sign, thus you should be properly compensated for that. You have 21 days by law to consider your agreement and 7 days AFTER you sign it to re-consider.

A bunch of folks are pooling resources together to visit a labor attorney to help navigate through the separation/severance packages. Former colleagues, if you’re interested in joining us, PLEASE let us know. It will cost a nominal amount if we’re a group.

* Article: Employment Separation Agreements: Should I Take the Bribe to Sign My Employment Separation Agreement?

4. Saving Money

To try to save/make some money, I’ve been researching which have the best interest rate return and found this site: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/online-savings-accounts-and-comparisons

I’m planning to open a savings account with ETRADE for their current 3.01% APY rate, plus they seem to have pretty good reviews. As advised by former colleague:

I use etrade for my savings. Great rate, total liquidity, thumbs up. Only downer is if you need money fast, it takes a few days to transfer out of etrade to your bank (which could be helpful actually for impulsive shopping trips or drunk nights). – so you need to plan ahead of time when you need the money.

Response from another:

Another high interest bank is INGDirect.com – been using them for checking, savings, AND my mortgage… been very happy with their service and rates. They don’t beat ETRADE’s current saving’s account rate though – but have no minimums – and if you’re looking for a high interest checking account, you can’t go wrong with them.

Let me know if anyone’s interested and I can send you a referral email – you’ll get $25 for free for opening an account of at least $250 and I’ll score $10 for referring you.

BTW – having internet banks, while great for interest rates, is not that practical – especially if you need to write out checks (ing only has echecks) or make a bank deposit. I still keep a local free bank account open to work with them for deposits at times that I just later move into my higher interest rate internet bank via their website.

This was helpful for me in deciding.

5. Finding a Job

NETWORK!

* Here’s my LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/estellatse If you’re not sure what LinkedIn is, I recommend it–it’s like a social network site but with your resume, connecting to people you’ve worked with before. People can write recommendations for you there, and it’s otherwise a good resource to see if you know people who know people in places you want to work at.

* Find job fairs in your area – Anyone have a link I can provide here?

* Going to school? Try checking the student center to see if there’s any employment opportunities there that are right for you.

Edit (02/02/09): Sites I learned about from the She’s Geeky event on 01/31/09:

* http://novaworks.org/ — might be geared more towards the Silicon Valley area. Some lady at the session kept stressing this site.

* http://www.indeed.com/ — this apparently searches for results on all the Craigslist, Monster, etc etc. sites AND on the companies’ own job pages. This sounded skeptical to me, that a job search engine would be able to pick up the content from the employers’ sites. It seems like it does (or it just links to their jobs pages). Either way, doesn’t hurt to help searching on this, imo.

* http://startuply.com/ — directory of startup companies, if this is where you want to be.

(More of my commentary about what to do while you’re job-hunting per my comment below: VOLUNTEER!)

6. Interesting and Links I Found Useful

* What to do if you are laid off…
* Got Laid Off? What To Do When You Lose Your Job
* Laid-Off 101: What to do once you’ve been handed a pink slip

* Jobs in a Recession Survey Results 1: Recent Hires Got Jobs Via Referral from Friends, Colleagues, Alumni, or Family
* New Legislative Efforts to Aid Unemployed Californians

Events:
* She’s Geeky: http://shesgeeky.org/
January 30-31, 2009 in Mountain View
Check the website to find out more info about this. Geeky tech women! w00t!

* Peninsula Job Fair – (Gov’t Jobs?) http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/gov/1011802508.html
February 3, 2009: 10am – 3pm
Please see link for more info.

* LaidOffCampSF: http://laidoffcamp.com/
Tue, March 3 in SF
LaidOffCampSF is like BarCamp, where basically a bunch of people get together and talk and gather together to talk about topics/sessions that are created that morning. It’s like a day-conference where the attendees create the agenda and topics that they want for the day.

Phew! Hopefully I was able to capture most everything we discussed in the thread. PLEASE continue the thread via comments here–I think it would be helpful not just for us, but for any visitors during this downtime to use this info too. (Also, this is easier than adding people to the email thread, kakaka)

If comment thread goes well, I’ll keep the above updated!

Goodluck and THANKS everyone for all your help! <3