What Do I Do Now? How to cope with a layoff

It was a bitterly cold day but even torrential downpours didn't deter more than 1,000 people from attending a job fair at the Trumbull Marriott. Last year, the state lost 30,400 professional and business service jobs and, judging from the number of people looking smart, if a bit damp, in their business suits armed with resumes in leather-bound portfolios, a lot of applicants seemed to fall into that category.

A line of job seekers as diverse as the region started at the conference room and snaked into the hotel lobby. Shelton resident Michelle Flagiello, 22, who graduated from Manhattan College in May 2009 with a degree in marketing and management, had been offered sales jobs but was holding out for a position in marketing. Tracy Reinhardt, a 43-year-old mother of three from Shelton, was hoping to trade her two part-time jobs for one full-time job with better hours and career prospects.

"It's tough but I'm here and I'm plugging away," says Reinhardt with a smile. "I'm confident, enthusiastic, hopeful and eager."

If you're looking for work, job placement experts say, that's exactly the attitude to have. But it's not easy to be optimistic if you've been out of work for a while. In a nearby conference room, Mark Stankiewicz of the Connecticut Department of Labor fielded questions about extensions of unemployment benefits, mostly from people in their 40s and 50s. Many had been laid off from management positions after working for years with the same company, and more than a few were now desperately trying to stave off foreclosure of their homes.

"I've had people come in here in tears who say, `I'll take anything. I'll sweep the streets, because I don't want to lose my house, or I've got kids in college,'" says Joseph Caissey, manager of Southwestern CTWorks career center in Derby. "When they come from a higher-paying level and are looking for something at an equal level, it's very, very difficult. People who come in at entry level, there may be many more opportunities for them because they're willing to take a minimum-wage job. It is difficult for someone who comes in with all this experience who's been getting a good wage, but who at this point is desperate enough to take a lower-paying wage because they need to work."

Although economists are beginning to see some light at the end of the recession tunnel, jobs are typically the last thing to come back and the current employment picture remains bleak. At the beginning of the year, the Danbury labor market had the lowest unemployment rate in the state, at 8.5 percent, followed by the Bridgeport-Stamford labor market, at 9 percent. "There are so few postings of jobs and so many applying for those few postings," says Caissey. "I know someone who sent out 50 resumes a week and never got a response, and did that for months at a time. When it's an employer's market, like it is now, they can get exactly what they're looking for. There is always someone who is going to exactly meet their specifications."

Among those hardest hit in Fairfield County were people who once held lucrative and high-powered positions in the finance sector and people who worked in information technology. However, the recession has hit nearly every sector of the economy. "We're seeing people who thought they'd never be laid off from companies, who thought they were `safe,'" says Maryann Donovan, president and founder of Impact Personnel, a permanent and temporary staffing agency in Norwalk. "It could be anything from executive assistant to a CFO on up to a senior director of a human resources department. Companies have cut very far this time."

Coping with Loss

Indeed, many people in unemployment lines today are surprised to find themselves there. "This is the first time in my life that I have been unemployed and how naive I was in the beginning," a Connecticut woman, who has been out of work for more than two years after working in human resources for two decades, writes on unemployed-friends.forumotion.com. "Having a very good pedigree on paper, I thought, no big deal; I'll just apply and get a job when I'm ready. Ha. The loss of my home, my medical benefits, my belongings, my marriage, my dignity, and most of my friendships have left me feeling secluded and lost. ¦ I simply get up every day hoping the phone will ring from the MANY applications/resumes I had sent out that week."

This Connecticut woman may feel alone, but she's got plenty of company. Many of us define ourselves by what we do for a living and probably spend more time at work and with colleagues than we spend at home with family and friends. Losing a job, then, is much more than losing a paycheck. It means the loss of social network and the relinquishing of a certain position in society. Without a job, some people can lose their sense of identity and sense of purpose.

Although it sounds overly dramatic, employment experts often compare the loss of a job with the loss of a loved one. The five stages of dying, defined by Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, apply here, too. It's both natural and necessary to grieve, experts say, which is why many recommend giving yourself time to mourn. It's equally important, they stress, to work through your anger before you start applying for other jobs. "Often people are bitter and angry, and an employer doesn't want to hear that," says Donovan. "Even though it may be unfair that you were let go, you can't let it show."

Get Up and Out

After being with the same employer for a decade or more, the prospect of entering the job market can be daunting. People who may once have been contemplating retiring in a few years are now updating resumes, wondering if they need to update their skills, and worrying that their experience, which ought to be a plus, will render them "overqualified" for the available jobs.

The days of finding employment through a newspaper classified are largely gone, replaced instead by online job sites and electronic applications sent to anonymous companies that offer no contact information. Many people find it to be an impersonal and disheartening experience. "They do feel their resume goes into the black hole, because so few companies acknowledge receipt of resumes," says Donovan. "It's hard."

The Department of Labor, local career centers and employment agencies all offer career counseling, seminars on resume writing and interviewing techniques, retraining programs and job placement. "You have to utilize many different approaches," says Donovan. "Go to agencies, go on the Internet, really network."

Steve Hutton, a 55-year-old Stratford man with 25 years of sales experience, most recently as manager of a sales team at a car dealership, is an avid networker. Since being laid off a year and a half ago, he's become a regular at about 20 different networking groups and often attends as many as seven groups a week, from small groups that meet at the Fairfield and Darien public libraries, to large groups organized by profession that meet at career centers.

"I'm constantly networking," says Hutton. "I think it's helpful to an extent to have the opportunity to talk to people who are in the same boat you're in and can relate to your experience, and they want to help you. I go to these groups to help people. Sometimes sitting around a table people will come up with something that might help your job search that you haven't given any consideration to. I tend to be a positive person by nature. I just keep moving, just keep plugging along. You can't retreat into a shell. You've got to let everybody know you're looking for work. You'll find most people are eager to help you if they can."

The most important thing, Donovan says, is to keep busy, keep trying, and do what you need to keep your spirits up. You will find a job eventually.