My experience at the company has cut me off from other work- for fear that I may not stick around …

> Retailers wont take me because of my accomplished work history. Can't you just remove it from your CV then? I thought that CV is like personal marketing material: you only list things there that help you to get a specific job – and skip everything else that doesn't.

Have you tried the consultant/contractor angle? Many companies that were forced to downsize will be looking into contracting out some of the workload they still want to be done.

what's your skill set? did you lower your salary requirement and look in other industries? i'm a software dev. i got layoff many times before. what i do is lower my salary requirement to get a job then start looking for a job with better pay within 6 months to a year so it doesn't look like i'm job hopping.

> I even tried playing the 'I have another offer elsewhere' lie card, with nothing to show for it. You probably should've actually gotten an offer elsewhere, maybe even had it in hand and quoted the number for them to meet/exceed. Not actually having one can backfire. It's really an ultimatum, and one you should probably follow through on if called. Maybe it's not a factor in your case, but this can result in souring a relationship with your employer.

nelsoch (OP), please don't be offended by what I am about to say, I don't intent to offend you. I am just sharing a valuable advice I received for everyone in this boat. When I was at my first job, I too went way beyond my scope of job descriptions and did many things. Everyone appriciated me and I felt I was a vital part of the company. That is when my new manager gave this advice. Though that the time, I was annoyed by him and felt he was a pain in the ass. I was too young and stupid to understand what he was telling, so he just forced me to comply. Which, in the end, helped me a lot. I had to fill an excel sheet of all the things I did and forward to my supervisor. I only filled what was my job and didn't put in the extra things. The manager asked why I was not informing the company of what I was actually doing in the company. The manager said that I was not giving enough focus on the…

> I tried for years beforehand- to get moving up, but told it wasn't possible(yet). I even tried playing the 'I have another offer elsewhere' lie card, with nothing to show for it. This is why you don't lie about it. Get the other offer first, and if they don't offer any remedy, you actually leave.

> Went above and beyond the call of duty and even relocated my wife and kids to be closer so that I could be on-call(not in job description). I took leadership and management positions without compensation just to keep workflow going. Why?