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50-somethings deal with down-sizing

Posted on 11. Jul, 2005 by Bill in Employment News

50-somethings deal with down-sizing

By the Numbers

1.7 - million workers aged 55 and older lost their jobs between January 2001 and December 2003

1.2 - million workers aged 55 and older lost their jobs between January 1999 and December 2001

52 - percent of displaced workers aged 55 and older found other jobs in 2004

69 - percent of displaced workers aged 25 to 54 found other jobs in 2004

25.8 — average number of weeks it took displaced older workers to find a new job in 2004

18.9 — average number of weeks it took displaced younger workers to find a new job in 2004

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics and AARP

Angie Fenwick estimates she has 50 versions of her resume stored in her computer. She’s listed her experience functionally and chronologically. She’s fought the urge to tailor the resume for each job opening. She’s debated concealing her vast leadership roles, afraid age discrimination would send her resume straight to the outbox.

Fenwick, a baby boomer, never thought she’d be filling out applications and posting on Monster.com at this point in her life. After all, she spent decades climbing the corporate ladder, working her way up to chief spokeswoman at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant. She led her company, FirstEnergy Corp., through the publicity fever following Sept. 11, 2001, and the questions about terrorist threats at the plant.

Then, she was forced to take a severance package as a result of “corporate restructuring.”
At a recent workshop hosted by the Pennsylvania Professional Employment Network at Beaver County Community College, Fenwick showed up ready to tweak her resume one more time. Crisply dressed in a black cardigan, gold shirt, tan slacks and sharp jewelry, she remains the model PR agent, even for herself.

“I’m currently retooling myself, reinventing myself, so to speak,” said Fenwick, who spent the last year soul searching and job hunting. “The best way to describe it is I’m like a little kid in a candy shop. I feel like the world is wide open to me.”

Fenwick is among the new class of forced retirees, 50-somethings stung by a wave of downsizing who now have to choose between dusting off their resumes or investing in that RV decades earlier than planned. All this at the point in their careers when they’re supposed to be getting that corner office and settling into an upper management role.

Nearly 1.7 million workers nationwide aged 55 and older lost their jobs between January 2001 and December 2003 as a result of plants closing, insufficient work or elimination of their position, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number is 42 percent higher than the number of older workers who lost their jobs in the three preceding years.

Although a majority of displaced older workers found a new job in 2004, the average duration of unemployment was 25.8 weeks, according to the AARP. It took displaced workers in the younger age bracket, from 25 to 54 years old, an average of 18.9 weeks to find a new job. As many as 69 percent of those younger workers found a new job, compared to 52 percent for older workers.

“It used to be that a graduate from college got a job with a good company, kept their nose clean, got steady promotions until they got the corner office, and then they retired with their gold watch and a pension,” said Geri Puleo, a career counselor based in Green Tree. “Now people must manage their career much more like a musician or artist: You’re only as good as your last gig, you have to work with a coach and network constantly.”

Puleo led the resume workshop for PAPEN at last month’s meeting, but before she flipped on the overhead, the group held an impromptu roundtable that appeared more counseling session than networking opportunity.

“There’s a lot of sales jobs out there, but there’s a lot of junk jobs,” said Joe Mulach of Beaver County, who sold air hydraulic equipment to industrial businesses until he lost his job about a year ago. “They say you can make a million, but if the same ad is in the paper week after week, it means one of three things: The company’s really growing, nobody’s applying or nobody’s staying.”

Janet Dinello of Beaver Falls vented about the seemingly impenetrable wall of receptionists.

“Jobs that I would apply for, that I thought I could do, they wouldn’t even consider me for,” said Dinello, who worked in the quality assurance department of a metal manufacturer. “I thought, ‘Can’t I even learn?’ I was really irritated. The biggest frustration was hearing the receptionist wouldn’t even pass my name on.”

After 11 months of job searching, Dinello found work in June. She transferred her knowledge in quality control to the pharmaceutical industry and got a slight pay raise, too. She said she came back to the PAPEN meeting to offer encouragement.

Puleo said the members’ general frustration — and their year-long hiatuses between jobs — is common among the boomers.

“They went from, ‘I’m a senior engineer, and I need a $50,000 signing bonus,’ to ‘Please God, would you like to have fries with that?’” she said.

She warns her clients not to get caught up in the job title game, but to focus on the duties and responsibilities of the position

“The problem with the boomers is we’ve worked so hard, given up so much, we’re good at what we do and we feel younger than our age,” Puleo said. “They get the feeling, Why doesn’t anyone want us? They’re very frustrated and I see a lot of borderline depression.”

Like many downsized professionals and former executives, Alex Friedman, 40, of Stanton Heights exchanged “unemployed” for “consultant.” After months of searching for work the traditional way, he founded his own firm, Franklin Scientific Consulting, and set up a home office.

Friedman said he dialed up everyone in his network, a practice that was part of his routine even while employed, and let them know he was available to offer his biotech expertise. He consistently attends networking events, like last month’s Innovation Day, sponsored by the Pittsburgh Technology Council, to make contacts.

If he could do one thing differently, he wishes he would have gone to the Career Development Center in Squirrel Hill earlier.

“I went too late,” Friedman said. “It would have been way less stressful if I had gone earlier. They don’t just correct the punctuation on your resume, they boost your confidence and become your ally.”

Puleo said displaced workers must mine their networks, like Friedman has, since the majority of jobs are never advertised. Networking events abound in the city, such as the “Mix at Six” cocktail hour sponsored by Pittsburgh Public Theater where professionals mingle before the opening night of shows at the O’Reilly Theater.

But even with organizations like PAPEN, the Edge Networking Group and the Pittsburgh Executive Association, networking can feel like a job in itself.

“In Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York and other transient communities like those, referring happens,” Puleo said. “In Pittsburgh, it’s more, ‘What area are you from and will you cross a river?’”

Fenwick could handle a river. She’s even considered job opportunities across state lines. Companies in Kansas City and Philadelphia have nibbled at her resume. Even though her son has one year left in high school, relocation may be necessary, she said.

Not everyone has that freedom.

“It’s one thing when you’re 22 or 23 to pick up and move. It’s another when you have a spouse, when you have a family — children and elderly parents — in the area,” Puleo said.

Mid-lifers shouldn’t be afraid to aggressively market themselves, she said. They tend to play down their experience and assume everyone has the skills they have spent a career building, she said.

Linda Guest, a human resources professional, said hiring older workers can benefit companies. Guest, who works in the Moon offices of the research-based pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, said mid-life hires have hands-on experience that can’t be taught.

“You see that person come in and add value almost immediately,” she said.

Puleo said some universities are developing a “knowledge management” degree so companies can fight the loss of institutional knowledge, those unwritten rules that go out the door when seasoned employees leave. Phased packages are entering the marketplace as well, where the senior employee decreases hours gradually, training the replacement and easing into retirement.

There’s another sign on the horizon that things might be changing for the displaced, mid-career professional.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects from 2002 to 2012 the number of 35- to 44-year-olds in the labor force will decline by 3.8 million, while the number of available 55- to 64-year-olds will increase by 8.3 million, which will open up opportunities for older workers. The new kinds of careers that will be created in the information age, though, are unknown — and boundless.

“My advice to anyone in this position is to let yourself go through all the emotional shock of the lay off first,” said Friedman, who waited several months before he started consulting. “Ride it out. Then do the absolute best you can to convince yourself you were successful before and you will be successful again.”

“As hard as it is, don’t take it personally,” he said. “You could have walked out at any time, they just beat you to the punch.”

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