As human nature and the quest for power would have it, we are always at a disadvantage in the world when we ask a stranger for something. So it is with interviews from the minuscule amount of ads that actually answer you back. The interviewer’s defenses are up and it’s damn hard to always resonate with him or her beyond small talk because the interviewer usually directs the interview direction. Unless we come into an interview through a contact or introduction, we are essentially communing with someone we’ve never met before and placing an essential need of ours for their consideration.

Job search advice is a dime a dozen and proliferating as you are reading this. The job search industry is big business. Sometimes the advice offered is contradictory. Do this, don’t do that…can’t you read the ad? Some recruiters and private counselors say ignore ads that read, “No phone calls please” and go ahead and call, some say don’t dare do it. Some advice tells you go in person to a company, some warn against it as the death knell to your application. Sometimes and in some situations, all of the job search advice in the world is true. One hopes to master every single possibility and eventuality and each scenario is different yet the same if no job offer materializes.

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Unemployment has finally allowed me to “come out” as a world class cheapskate, and the recession has made my long held predilection for thrift fashionable. I have lots of company now too, and not just from fellow layoff victims and those with normally low or fixed incomes. A recent “New York Times” story, for example, highlighted upper and upper middle class employed folks who finally feel comfortable admitting their passion for penny pinching  It suggested that in 2009 “keeping up with the Jones’” may mean bargain hunting as well as your neighbors, and not driving as big a car as they do.

You’ll always see articles and advice suggesting saving by going to big box stores like Costco, but for city folks without cars or lots of storage space shopping from bulk warehouses isn’t always practical. The last time I tried to stock up at Costco the price of car service negated much of my cost saving. Here are some of my favorite pedestrian friendly destinations and brands for maximum bang for the buck; I loved many of them before I was a 405er, and my affection is only growing.

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Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Janet Raiffa’s Recessionals,” a column by a laid-off recruiting manager in New York. Prior columns are collected [here]. You can reach Janet Raiffa via LinkedIn, leaving a comment here, or emailing 405club@gmail.com.

After I was laid off in March I quickly realized that my job search would be different than the one I’d engaged in only the year before, and all the other job searches I’d undertaken in two decades as a recruiter.  A significant number of my former colleagues were out of work, and senior level jobs in the industries I had experience in – consulting, law, and banking – were increasingly hard to find, and still undergoing contraction. I knew I’d have to take on some part-time work to fill the days between interviews, and I was lucky to find a wide variety of odd jobs that kept my spirits up even if they didn’t exactly fill my bank account. I “babysat” for the bird of parents whose children I’d minded years ago, I dodged flying clothing while doing a retail stint at a sample sale, I cater-waitered for a comfort food entrepreneur, I petitioned for a Democratic candidate for District Attorney, served as a guinea pig for psych and science experiments at Columbia, and hit the streets to cast shopaholic women for a reality television show.  Some of the jobs made me feel like I was back in college again and that all my years of professional experience had been mysteriously dissolved, and others proved valuable largely because the manual tasks involved helped me burn more calories than I ever had while working at a desk job.  Of all these short-term gigs, the one that I’ve been doing the longest and still find the amusing is my job as a trailer-checker – a marketing research associate who gets paid to go to the movies.

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It’s getting to be summertime and hiring will slow down as managers go on vacation.

Here’s how you can maintain your work ethic:

Volunteer!

In the summer months, nonprofit groups often experience a mismatch of increased demand for help and decreased supply of folks to pitch in. Their staff and usual volunteers go on vacation, which makes the need for more hands especially acute.

Whether you use your professional skills, or simply lend a hand where needed, your assistance will be appreciated.

Since my layoff in December, I’ve volunteered as a Public Relations professional for The Roosevelt Island Historical Society, 100 Women in Hedge Funds, JASA, SmartVolunteer and Habitat for Humanity New York, in addition to The 405 Club.

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If I were a good unemployed girl I’d wake up early, get dressed in business or business casual attire and approach my job search as if it were my new job.  Each new day would be an opportunity to network and spin my years of successful multitasking into model cover letters for the next exciting chapter in my career.  Instead, I’ve developed a number of alarming habits that interrupt my focus when I remain at home.  These include the following: misty-eyed reviewing of  old paychecks, gazing lovingly at old business cards, checking the balances of my checking and savings accounts multiple times a day, questioning the strategies employed by players in the daytime version of “Deal or No Deal,” and surreptiously returning my neighbors’ empty bottles to the supermarket  for nickels.

As a lifelong workaholic, I’ve realized that the only way I am going to make it through a period of unemployment while retaining the better part of my sanity is to go with a hybrid approach.  I need to interrupt sending resumes into a black hole and hearing that I am conversely overqualified or underqualified for every position I’m interested in with some type of actual paying work, even if these short-term or one-day gigs have nothing to do with my career goals or pay so little that they make me question the fiscal consequences of having lunch.

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