Hello podcast friends. I'm Laura Adams your host and personal finance author

speaker and consumer advocate who's been producing this show since 2008.

Thanks so much for downloading the show and spending some time with me this week.

If you have been on the quote-unquote front lines of dealing with the coronavirus crisis over the past few weeks,

I also just want to take a moment to say a very heartfelt thank you for your work. Whether it's in a hospital, grocery store,

factory, delivery truck, government position, or doing work through a food delivery app.

What you're doing is keeping the country going. So again, thank you so much for being out there. And as the pandemic continues, we've seen the number of people becoming unemployed or losing business income

mounting. Unfortunately, the Labor Department says that about 17 million

workers have filed for unemployment benefits in the past three weeks.

There are countless numbers of businesses such as restaurants, salons, hotels,

shops, factories that have closed temporarily,

or maybe in some cases will be closed permanently.

If you've been caught up in this and have been laid off or maybe you expect to be laid off,

it is critical to take advantage of every possible benefit and also to think

about how to pivot to a new opportunity as quickly as possible. So today I

interview Colleen McCreary. She is the chief people officer at Credit

Karma. We talk about some tips on navigating unemployment due to the coronavirus disaster.

Colleen joined Credit Karma a couple years ago back in 2018 and now she oversees more

than 1,300 employees across offices in the United States, Canada, and the UK.

She's got more than 20 years of experience in human resources, recruiting and

operations, so I thought she'd be a great person to talk to.

She really understands managing people in technology companies so well that she became a technical

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