This coming week is one of many introductory emails and follow-up phone calls. I spent time organizing my contacts into specific groups, and received many referrals from family, friends, and associates over the past several weeks (for which I am very grateful, keep the cards and letters coming in!). Many of these new contacts are in the business or the supply chain, but I have also received generic lists of recruiters and headhunters, and I have been busy on LinkedIn.
Also, this week marks my orientation at the outplacement agency. I'm a little wary of this, as I have been through it before and had to dig deep to find the value, but here it is: you need to get out of the house and into a setting that forces you to work at the job of finding a job. There may also be opportunities for networking in industries you are not necessarily considering for the future. One thing to be careful of: don't expect them to do the work for you.