Did you recently lose a job because your company was downsizing or because your company went out of business? If you're in dire straits financially, you might consider liquidating your assets to pay for new interview clothes or for gas. While I can't help you with funding ever-increasing gas prices (or spa treatments to help you compete against younger job interviewees), I can provide you with some free resources that could help you feel competent in that job interview.

Free Clothes: First impressions are important, and job interviews provide you with one chance to get it right. While you can't get 'free' clothes at second hand stores, you can find help from some organizations that help you dress professionally for that job interview. Dress for Success provides business suits for disadvantaged women, but they provide much more as well. This international non-profit organization also offers an employment retention program through the Professional Women's Group (PWG), which offers ongoing support as women successfully transition into the workforce. Dress for Success also has developed Career Center, an initiative that promotes confidence and professionalism by providing women with career guidance, technology skills and assistance in job searches.

Clients to Dress for Success are served by referral only, and women must have an interview scheduled before they receive clothing. You can find ninety locations throughout the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Poland and the West Indies. Go to the Dress for Success website to learn more.

Free Voice Mail: While men may lose out on the 'dress for success' vein, anyone who has lost their phone service because of financial problems can appreciate a free voice mail service. How would you receive your interview call otherwise? If you can gain access to a touch-tone phone, you can use an instruction card - similar to a calling card - to dial a number, record a greeting, create a password and create a free voice mail account through CVM (Community Voice Mail). In that process, the user creates a new phone number that he or she can hand out to potential employers or print on a resume.

To gain access to that voice mail, the user can use that same touch-tone phone (a pay phone, social service agency phone or friend and family phones) to access the voice mail. Users with email addresses (through the local library, perhaps) also can receive an email notification that a voice mail has been received. These phone numbers are distributed based upon financial need, lack of a reliable phone service or pursuit of a goal for work, housing, healthcare or safety from domestic violence.

CVM is available in most coastal states, and seed money is available to start up this program in new cities. Check the CVM website to learn more.

Assess Salary Requirements: What if you're offered a job in another city, but you don't know how much salary you need to live? You can get free calculators for this information and more from the Economic Research Institute website. Go to the “Resources” page, where many of this organization's salary and other calculators are offered for sale – sprinkled throughout these offerings you'll discover nearly three dozen free compensation calculators and reports, including a link to U.S. Government salary data (bonus – you also can find free a investment return calculator here, which may help you refrain from cashing in that portfolio).

You also can learn more about nationwide salary statistics for you career objective at the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although this site's financial information was gathered a few years ago, you can get a vague inkling about what people were paid in your given job across the country, by state and by city in many cases. Plus, you can learn about how to brush up on your skills to obtain the highest level of pay possible for your career.

Brush Up on Interview and Job Skills: Craig McKee reported the job losses and financial catastrophes in this country until he faced his own layoff in 2008. He then created the Unemployed American website, where you can post a resume and make connections as well as read articles about how to handle interviews. Further help can be found at Toastmasters International.

Although you need to pay a twenty-dollar registration fee (only after you attend your first meeting), Toastmasters International offers many free tips and advice on how to handle interviews, speeches and more. When you learn about some of this organization's alumni, you may wonder why you never took advantage of their advice and meetings – especially when the same information is handed out at seminars for an often exorbitant fee. Go to the Toastmasters International website to learn more about meeting locations and membership.

Use Your Library: One of my neighbors has lost three jobs within the past three years after a nine-year stint with a company that went out of business. She obtains a job, but she loses it the day before insurance benefits and other job perks kick in at the ninety-day mark (she lost the last job on day 89). Since she doesn't own a computer and she can't afford an Internet connection, she heads to the library daily to look for work, to land interviews and to learn more about news that affects her career. You, too, can use your local library to gain access to the same information and to catch up on your email and to check your portfolio...you know, the one you didn't cash in to land that job.

Until Later,