So you get fired, or laid off, or you quit because after a month you know you’re at the worst company in the world. In all of these cases, you will face the interview question: What happened at your last job, why did you leave? Here’s the answer you should always give: “I left to do x.” And you fill in for x. “There was no room for advancement.”

This brings me to what you should be really focusing on when you are unemployed, learning and growing, because this is what you are going to talk about in job interviews. Most people require about six months to get another job. This is a big chunk of time that you can waste sending resumes to Monster and wondering why no one responds. But you cannot job hunt for eight hours a day, you’ll go nuts. So spend the time creating projects for yourself and executing on them. This is good for you mentally – because you are doing something meaningful with your time and that will keep your spirits up. But this is also good for you in your job hunt, because when you talk about why you left the last company, you spin it in a positive light by talking about how you are excited about doing what you are doing. Your interview should include a good story that you tell, focused personal growth, and no one will get stuck on why you left your last job.

Here are some ideas on how to set that story up:

1. Create a job for yourself. These projects can be range, but they have to show that you are determined, ambitious and focused. During one stretch of unemployment, I blogged and wrote for an online magazine that didn’t pay. I would cover stories and write press releases for free. It was good practice and got my name out there. This also showed that I didn’t actually have a gap in my resume. Funny thing is, a resume doesn’t show part-time or full-time and it doesn’t show pay or no pay. So writing and keeping my skills up ended up looking like a full-time job on my resume.

2. Start a blog about the industry you want to go into. Blogging is a great way to keep up in your industry, network without looking desperate, and leverage the fact that you have more time on your hands that people who have jobs. Everyone who is unemployed should be blogging as a way to get their next job. Put your ideas out into the world and connect with people that way. This is why you want to be hired, right, for your ideas, skills and talents. The reason that people who blog have great careers is that bloggers are always thinking about issues in their industry. Show that side of yourself to people. Blogging takes a lot of time, sure, but you have a lot of time, so use it effectively.

3. Practice talking about yourself. High performers practice for interviews. So now you know what you’re aspiring for, but you need to talk about it with everyone – gatherings, parties, at the gym, on the phone with friends. When they ask how you’re doing, talk about it like you are on a job interview. And the good news is that the better you get at talking like that, the more you will actually believe your story.

What is most important to remember is that no one can tell you what experience you can gain and what you can’t. You don’t need a job in order to learn or ‘gain experience.’ You control what you do with your time and you can make it useful. There is no reason to talk about why the last job didn’t work when you can talk about the great things that leaving opened up to you.