Continuing Education

　　Gene Bellavance, a 36-year-old information-technology project manager, took another route during his unemployment. When he was laid off from a steel company near Cleveland, he knew his immediate prospects were bleak. He expected his search to take a year. He faced a decision: take a job that would set back his career or hold out for an offer he really wanted.

　　Mr. Bellavance, single and virtually debt free, shifted his finances into survival mode. He cashed out his pension, sold his house, unloaded things he didn’t need at garage sales, and rented an apartment with a roommate. Then, he says, “I signed up for every benefit I could find.”

　　But he wasn’t just waiting out the year. He spent the rest of his search updating his skills, including becoming certified in new database and project-management software. “You have to invest in yourself,” Mr. Bellavance says. “I estimated what technology was going to be the most beneficial and chose applications that were going to be pervasive, that were right for my market, and that were going to ensure top pay.”

　　In addition to income from the occasional IT-consulting assignment, he relied on a combination of displaced-worker-retraining grants and unemployment benefits. “I went out and found the classes, submitted the paperwork, and dealt with the bureaucracy. You have to stay after them, keeping your benefits moving forward. It’s up to you to make it work with your overall transition plan,” he says.

　　His job search was one month shy of the full year he’d expected. He looked for work during his training and says he would have finished the certification programs even if he’d been hired before completing them.

　　“People should not feel guilty”about accepting government aid, he says. “I saw this in a lot of people. They felt they were some kind of loser for taking benefits. My advice is: Get all you can. You’ve been paying for these programs in your entire career, and you may as well start to benefit from them.”

　　Family Matters

　　In addition to pursuing training or volunteering, some displaced careerists use their time off work to attend to family matters. Many executives rediscover their children or find time to help their parents.

　　Stanford Rappaport held three jobs in San Francisco, including high-tech and teaching positions. When he was laid off from the high-tech job last year, he knew it might be a long slog before he could get another post like it in the Bay Area. “I was able to do the math,” says Mr. Rappaport, 46. “ The number of people laid off: huge; and the number of available jobs: miniscule. At the time, I thought it might be two or three years before the tech industry recovered.”

　　Mr. Rappaport’s remaining job, a part-time faculty position with City College of San Francisco, didn’t pay enough to support him. After a couple of months of searching with no results, he decided to escape the Northern California jobs meltdown. “My plan,” he says, “was to get out of an expensive living situation, and either seek work in another section of the U.S. or overseas, for those two years.” Mr. Rappaport, who speaks five languages, had worked overseas before.

　　Before he found an assignment, his Arkansas-based mother was diagnosed with a serious chronic illness, and he was called into duty as a son. Mr. Rappaport was able to help his mother get her affairs in order not to interrupt his search by using a San Francisco mail drop and cellphone. “I continued to look for work in California while I was in Fayetteville, Ark., helping my mother through this crisis.”

　　He took his mother to medical appointments, made repairs on her house, bought her a better car, and straightened out her legal and financial affairs. “I even got to go through my father’s effects, which in the five years since he had died were simply piled in boxes in his office,” he says.

　　Mr. Rappaport’s stay in Arkansas lasted six months. “It’s amazing that at this stage I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time with my mother and improve her life and get a lot of things done for her. Most people never have that opportunity. I’m very thankful that I had the chance. It was absolutely worth it,” he says.

　　One of the unexpected benefits was the huge boost in confidence he gained from his role as caregiver. He’d been feeling depressed and defeated when he left California, but after returning, he felt renewed. He landed a job with a former employer after returning to San Francisco and remains a part-time faculty member.

　　Discovery and Exploration

　　Instead of spending time off lamenting your unemployed status, ask yourself: “Is there something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because of the demands of my job?”

　　Felice Fisk, a 29-year-old in Seattle, recently left an account-manager position at a contract-furniture company. During seven months of unemployment, she took an interest in fine-art painting and completed 18 pieces before returning to work. “I found the art work, or some kind of creative outlet, to be really beneficial,” she says. She’s now an interior designer for an interior-design firm.

　　Michael Ross, 42, a former IT administrator in El Cerrito, Calif., recently spent his 10 months of unemployment playing guitar and exploring his lifelong interest in scriptwriting and the movie business. “After 18 years at my former employer and how hard I had worked, I knew I had to recover, to get restored,” he says. “I looked at this as an opportunity, rather than a penalty. This was very much about clearing space for me.”

　　At the executive level, even a very efficient and successful job search may be quite lengthy. It makes sense to spend that time in an enriching and productive manner. These job seekers pursued service, continuing education and shoring up family bonds. How you’ll look back on a period of unemployment depends on what you do with it.

　　1. This passage mainly tells that being unemployed is not all bad.

　　2. Lisa Perez found a new interest in homemaking during the period of unemployment.

　　3. Lisa Perez was always optimistic during the period of her unemployment.

　　4. After she got a new job, Lisa Perez regretted that she had not done volunteering work earlier.

　　5. Unemployment means a lot of time, especially for those hard-charging executives who are not used to having any time.

　　6. Being a volunteer is helpful because volunteer assignments can provide you with chances to meet people.

　　7. Mr. Bellavance cashed out his pension, sold his house and unloaded things he didn’t need at garage after losing his job in order to change his finances into mode.

　　8. When unemployed, some careerists take the opportunity to family matters in addition to pursuing training or volunteering.

　　9. The role as caregiver brought about a huge boost in to Mr. Rappaport. After returning from California, he felt renewed.

　　10. Michael Ross resigned and spent his unemployment time playing guitar and exploring his lifelong interest in scriptwriting and the movie business for he looked at this as an , rather than a penalty.