Unemployed? Use Highrise for Free to Managed Your Employment Pipeline.

Unemployed? Feel like you can’t catch a break?

Being unemployed is not easy. Psychologically, it can be downright demoralizing as it threatens the very security of putting food on the table and keeping shelter over your head.

For the unemployed, I’m sure everyone has advice about what you should or shouldn’t do. Perhaps the piece of advice I hear most often is to treat being unemployed like a job. Really? What exactly does that mean?

It’s a numbers game:

From personal experience, I can tell you exactly it means to those of you in sales already know: You are now in sales and the product you are selling is you.

I moved from California back to my home state of South Carolina in March 2001. Some of you may remember that year. It was a little thing called the dot-com bust. I saw hundreds of job listings on job sites literally vanish in two months. So I arrived in town, with my wife, two dogs and zero job or job offers.

So I got to work. Luckily, I had some rudimentary database skills and built a down and dirty CRM package to record leads, conversations and my progress to finding a job. After one month I had uncovered forty job listings, ten interviews, and two job offers.

Why not work smarter?

I didn’t have access to tools like Highrise then. Why spend your time reinventing the wheel when tools like this exist? Highrise, a 37Signals offering, helps you manage your leads, contacts, keep track of e-mail conversations in a single place and-  most importantly – an easy dashboard of next steps to follow  for free!

When’s the last time someone did that for you? While it tops out at 250 contacts, your opportunity management list is really limited only by your tenacity to find employment.

For those of you running small businesses, this tool set really helps road warriors focused and productive. Don’t worry about spending time logging in to your dashboard, simply forward e-mail conversations to your unique dropbox address and Highrise will handle the rest.

Those of you without employment need some good news. I know this isn’t a job that pays the bills, but this is one tool that I wish I would’ve had to get up to every morning!

I’m including a quick video introduction of Highrise. If you are unemployed or simply want to talk about Highrise, feel free to connect with me. I am always happy to lend a hand.

Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken serves on the board of the new Managed Print Services Association, an international industry organization seeking worldwide best practices for the managed print services industry. He is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting with you.