Even as the economy improves, a jobless executive may face up to a year or more of unemplo

yment. This is a lot of time, especially for hard-charging high-performers who are not used to having any free time. While some job seekers spend hundreds—even thousands—of hours discovering daytime television, others seem to thrive on activities that boost their professional careers or resolve family issues when they aren't working.

Having an extended period of free time in the prime of one's life can in fact be a unique opportunity to focus on volunteer service, professional education or personal growth.

Community Involvement

For Lisa Perez, the wakeup call was burned pork chops. An executive who previously hadn't been particularly interested in home and health had become obsessed with homemaking during a stint of unemployment.

She realized that cleaning and organizing her home wasn't helping her job search. Nevertheless, "I made lists of 50 things to do every day," says Ms. Perez, a political and public-relations consultant in Scottsdale, Ariz. "My house was spotless, just so I'd have something to do."

One day, her boyfriend didn't arrive on time for dinner because he had to work late, and her pork chops were mined. She threw a fit. "I'd never been a person like that," she says. "So I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, and go out and do something productive."

Ms. Perez, 35, resolved to become an active volunteer for the duration of her search. She gave her time to a health-care concern, a housing program and a political campaign.

The work bolstered her self-confidence. "Volunteering takes the focus off of yon. One thing you have that's still valuable is your time. And, of course, you learn that there are thousands of people with a life that's much worse than yours," she says.

Volunteer assignments are also great ways to meet powerful and well-connected people. Over a six-month period, her volunteering evolved into working as a paid consultant and then as a full-time employee, a job she still holds today. In all, she was unemployed for eight months.

Before her job loss, she thought she didn't have time to volunteer while working. "Now, even though I have a demanding job, I still volunteer, because of what I got out of it, says Ms. Perez.

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 1 could find."

But be 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 forwa

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