Hello,

I have been unemployed since December and am starting to get a bit despondent and unenthusiastic about everything. This is no self pity post, just wanting ideas! I have been spending my days searching online for positions, have met with a number of recruiters, sent my CV to many contacts and applied for a ton of jobs. I haven't even had one interview

I speak fluent German, English is my mother tongue and I also speak some Spanish. I've got interesting work experience from having worked in NY, Berlin, UK. I worked in Vaud for a year before moving to Zurich thinking there would be a lot of opportunity here and it would be easy to find work. I am registered with the RAV but my salary wasn't huge so I am having to live on very little money in this expensive city.

Apart from looking for work what are other unemployed people doing to fill their days? I am starting to drive my boyfriend, who works from home, up the wall!

At the beginning I loved having so much time. When I was working I was so busy, travelling a lot etc etc. Now that I have the time I can't afford to do anything.

I have been going for walks,doing boring exercise videos, been to the Kunsthaus for free Wednesdays many times, cooking lentils yaaaaawn.

Any ideas to stop me going insane would be much appreciated..

I find disparaging people on the internet is entertaining and passes a lot of time.

You could do a bit of volunteer work. It gives you something to do, gives your self esteem a boost and it doesn't look too bad on your CV.

Personally I'd give serious thought to taking up Football Manager on the PC. It may not be your bag, but I lost whole, glorious, summers to that game.

Thank you for the ideas. Looking up the dictionary to find out the meanings of 'indolence' and 'disparaged' used up some time...

Yes, I think I have already given the EF about 5 days of my life.

Gay days sound fab!

Do you know of any websites where you can volunteer as and when you are able (like NY Cares)?

Cultivate a serious drinking habit, the days will just fly past.

Ooh, that reminds me.

Go to the Niederdorf, get a nice perch and a beer, then stick 1 CHF coins to the pavement with chewing gum, and watch people try and pick it up.

My sympathies...I have restarted work after more than a year (but shall we say 6 months of serious looking). It sucks!

1. Prepare yourself for the long haul, I am not saying to give up hope or anything but plan around the fact that you may have 6 months without working.

2. Jobsearch for max 4 hours of your day. You get burnt out really fast if you think you must look all the time...its actually counterproductive. Have one thing that gets you out of the house each day

3. Lack of structure and lack of human contact during working hours are the two biggest enemies of the unemployed. Solve this by getting into a routine everyday,Ie get up, have a nice brekkie, job search for 3 hours, do some excersise/volunteer work, or just hang out, do another hour or so of job stuff in the evening. On the human angle, there are a lot of people looking for work or have followed partners to Zurich, find them, meet them in real life, do stuff together.

4. Find a way to learn something new while unemployed...yaya its good for the CV and all that but the real use is that it keeps you sharp and makes you feel less like you are wasting your life. What you learn depends on your tastes and if you have a budget for it or not.

5. Invent a project to take up some of your time. Like making a website for yourself, translating weird articles on wikipedia, reasearching something you are interested in or something whacky like interviewing the druggies in ZRH. It should be something that will take 2-3 months part time to complete.

6. You will have ups and downs, its par for the course. Do what you can when you feel good and dont beat yourself up for the days when you just dont want to get out of bed. IF you find yourself really sliding, get out of Zurich, preferably out of Switzerland and shake yourself up. Find a cheap flight to somewhere (cheap and) different, or visit friends elsewhere.

Ok so none of that is really pratical on what to do in Zurich but surviving unemployment is not (just) about filling time. Its about keep sane....

Hi,
I am in the same boat. What about meeting up in the city and moaning together! I started a small sushi cooking school to keep me busy but still have too much time on my hands.

I would try and initiate a regular Fitness routine.

Cycling, Swimming, Gym - whatever, I think it would give you psychological benefits as well as pure physical ones.

Also, as Tony Cascarino (ex-footballer) once keenly observed, I paraphrase

"If you turn up at the new club and look in great shape, then the Chairman thinks, hey we'll get a few years out of this one yet! Turn up looking grey and he thinks "Oh no, no chance""

Replace "Club" with "Interview"

Best wishes

Thanks Gypsyspears, your post is great. I guess since you have been through the same thing you know how I am feeling. I realised the other day that i hadn't been out of the house for 2 days and had spent so long on the internet that my eyes were actually in pain!

I've been trying to plan my days out properly and like you said do some exercise, have some structure. I went to the Greifensee yesterday and rollerbladed round the lake. Knackering but I felt so good afterwards and somehow my mood was lifted and i didn't seem to care about the things I'd been worried about before.

I miss the banter with work colleagues, even the old pervy ones It takes time to get to know people in a new city and sometimes it helps just to get a bit of reassurance.

I am even reminiscing about living in the UK even though I haven't lived there for years and when I did I was so desperate to leave

Thanks again, I'd better get off my computer and get to work on getting the killer body that will get me all the job wahaha

Would love to! We could eat cake and moan...

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

Free OU short courses. Try before you buy!

11 months unemployed and still counting...

I spend around 3 hours a day on the internet searching for jobs.

For the rest of the day, I keep myself busy by going to the gym, which I do every day (2-3 hours of Cardio and weight training). I only started going to the gym 2 months ago, after a break of 16 yrs.

I've also rediscovered my love for cooking. Going to the supermarket, planning the evening meal, trying out new dishes. It's actually a bit of R&D since I'm a Hotelier and hope to open up my own place eventually. My wife loves it as she comes home to a fantastic meal every evening.

Greifensee is a great place, in summer I enjoy cycling around the lake and going for cool dips while doing a BBq. But I find it a little too cold right now.

I'm finding it really very tough here being unemployed. It's totally sucked the confidence out of me and replaced it with rage. If and when I get a job in the near future, the past 11 months will not be forgotten. It's probably the worst time of my life.

Wish you all the best mate.

11 months, hope you are coping okay.

Cycling is also a good way to pass the time and Switzerland has nice paths which are signposted. Another thing to do is to join Couchsurfing and attend their meetings. If you subscribe to the Zurich group there are events organised.

All the best

Feeling the exact same way. I've also been unemployed since December and living on a PhD stipend is pretty difficult for 2 people. As soon as I can, I'll get a gym membership and that will definitely help. But Im still learning German (on my own). So at least you have that down! Hopefully, they'll be some great ideas to keep the depressed/not-good-for-anything feeling away. Keeping sane while unemployed is A LOT easier said than done...

I'm in the same boat with the gym membership. Not enough money to afford one but I really want to. Doing exercise outside that is free is great but it is hard to psych myself up for in this weather!

Somehow I imagine being unemployed in summer would be less difficult... let's hope I don't find out...

I hope you find something soon Me, Myself & I. I bet your wife is loving your cooking at least!

Those open university taster courses are really good, thanks for the link.

*if you like reading, then you could volunteer to read for http://www.librivox.org

they take stories/books in the public domain, volunteers record mp3 files of these publications, and they create audiobooks from them. so you can improve your literary knowledge whilst doing good at the same time
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* i don't know how much gym membership costs here in ZH - but have you considered joining the ASVZ (so you can use the facilities at ETH Zentrum/Polyterrasse) - it's CHF350 for a year - the condition is that you are a graduate of *a* university (not jus in CH!).... http://portal.asvz.ethz.ch/ueber_asv...n/Alumni.aspx#

...the university in Zurich has 3 museum which are all free of charge. The medical museum was quite interesting.