Career Transitions: Hints for Coping with Job Loss

by Beverly Baskin, Ed.S, MA, LPC, MCC, NCCC

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Being out of work is not a fun experience for most of us and can be emotionally harmful and even dangerous for some people. According to the Social Adjustment Scale by Holmes, job loss is one of the top three stressors in a person's life. If we understand the psychology of job loss, we usually have an easier time adjusting to it and moving on with our lives.

People often have feelings similar to those of grieving or mourning the loss of a loved one, or the loss of any meaningful relationship in their lives. As author Michael Farr points out in his book, The Quick Job Search, when we loose a job, grief doesn't usually overwhelm us all at once; it usually is experienced in stages. The stages of loss or grief may include:

Shock -- you may not be fully aware of what has just happened. Denial -- usually comes next; you cannot believe that the loss is true. Anger/shame -- often follows; you blame (often without cause) those you think might be responsible, including yourself. Depression -- may set in some time later, when you realize the reality of the loss. Acceptance -- is the final stage of the process. You come to terms with the loss and get the energy and desire to move beyond it.

Michael Farr feels that the acceptance stage is the best place to be when starting a job search, but we might not have the luxury of waiting until this point to begin your search. Knowing that a normal person will experience some predictable "grieving" reactions can help us deal with our loss in a constructive way.

It is important to realize that every person has his or her own timetable as to when they reach the stage of acceptance. People go through a roller coaster ride of emotions in no particular order, and at different times of the job search process. The important thing to remember is that all of these feelings are normal and part of the grieving process associated with any type of loss. If you are wondering what is "normal" in terms of your emotions, or you are having emotions that are taking a toll on you or your family, you may want to discuss your feelings with a professional counselor.

Choices Regarding Re-employment Think about your ideal job and remember that abilities + enjoyment = Strengths. You really have four choices regarding you new job. They are:

• Same Job, Same Industry
• Same Job, Different Industry
• Different Job, Different Industry
• Owning Your Own Business

Explore how your present interests and abilities intersect with the current marketplace. With the concept of lifelong learning taking place in the workplace and the introduction of long distance learning on the Internet, people in all age groups have a chance to retrain. Many of the new skills do not require years and years of extensive schooling. There are several 3 to 18 month courses that constitute excellent retraining opportunities in data processing, computer repair, network engineering, allied health professions and other fields.

How to find a Job in Less Time When speaking to potential networking contacts, instead of asking for a job, try to ask for help and suggestions. In this way, even if there aren't any jobs available in the company, the person can help you by giving you the names of two or three people that he or she knows. Think of at least 50 contacts and ask for their help and advice regarding your job search.

A contact is someone who knows a lot of people, not necessarily someone who is in your industry. A contact is a friend, neighbor, doctor, dentist, travel agent, etc. Research has shown the people joining employment support groups find jobs one-third faster than those candidates doing it alone.

Job search can be very isolating. Seeking out the support of warm, caring individuals, and those who are in the same "place" as you can be very comforting, and you can share networking contacts with others. Support groups draw on everyone's knowledge and life experience to help all the members of the group. It is really the perfect example of giving and receiving. The National Business Employment Weekly has a list of local employment support groups by State in the "Activities" section" . This national newspaper can be found at bookstores, newsstands and libraries.

Set small, reachable goals for yourself. Try using this metaphor: don't think about getting from A to Z. It is too overwhelming. Think about getting from A to B, B to C, etc. Each time you reach a small goal that you set for yourself (like networking with five people each day) you are moving closer to the end goal of Z when you land your job!

Send a thank you note after an interview. Besides being courteous, a thank you note will give you a chance to recap the highlights of the conversation. It becomes an excellent selling tool.

If you want to talk with a hiring authority on the telephone, (other than Human Resources) you might have a better chance of speaking with him or her if you call before 9 AM or after 5 PM. Key decision-makers are usually in their offices by 7:30 am, and at that time of the morning, they pick up their own phones. There is a good chance that they will be more receptive to informational calls before the workday begins.

Think positive and affirm your strengths and assets. Examine your track record of achievements in former jobs and in other areas of your life. Write them down. Remember to be good to yourself. Exercise, eat right; try to put "balance" into your personal life.

You will survive this transition, and perhaps you might obtain a higher paying position. Looking back at it, many people say that losing a job was the best thing that ever happened to them. It gave them the opportunity to start fresh and obtain a position in an industry that really sparked their interests and enthusiasm. One of my clients recently told me: "After I lost my job, I reassessed some of my values. I realized that my job was only one part of my life, it wasn't my whole life."

Employee Retention Tip Poor Okay Good

by Charlie O. Trevor, Barry Gerhart, Ph.D. & John W. Boudreau, P

Job Vacancies, Employment, Employment Jobs

The voluntary departure of a high-performing employee, in whom the company has invested considerable training and who would be difficult and expensive to replace, can cause serious problems.

Not only does the company lose a key player in the company's current success, the talent pool from which future company leaders will emerge has been reduced. According to a study, one key to keeping high-performing employees is quite simple: pay them what they are worth.

Cornell University researchers Charlie O. Trevor, a doctoral candidate, Barry Gerhart, Ph.D, (now at Vanderbilt University) and John Boudreau, Ph.D., examined the employment records of more than 5,000 employees of a single company in the petroleum industry who had been hired between 1983 and 1988 and who were either still employed or had voluntarily resigned as of January 1, 1990.

They were interested in the relationships and interactions among employee performance ratings, salary growth, promotions and tenure, specifically which of those factors make it easier or more desirable for employees to stay with the company or leave it.

Promotions, they found, increased turnover likelihood for low performers, presumably by providing them with much-needed visibility and legitimacy in the external job market. However, promotions had no effect on the turnover of high performers.

Because top performers already enjoy high marketability, this suggests, the researchers say, that promotions alone do little to reduce high performers' desire to take advantage of other offers.

High salary growth, on the other hand, while helping to retain all performers, most helped the company hold onto high performers. Because these top performers can more easily find alternative employment, their turnover is more highly dependent on satisfaction with their employment situation, which depends in part on salary growth.

Thus, the authors note, traditional merit pay systems, which are frequently criticized as insufficiently motivating top performers, may also be problematic by contributing to high performer turnover.

The bottom line, the researchers say, is clear: "Tomorrow's stars and perhaps even franchise players may be among today's few top performers; their retention, at least in part, appears to depend on paying them according to their performance."

Dual Career Couples - Facing the "Stress of Success" - How Families Cope Part II

by Beverly Baskin, Ed.S, MA, LPC, MCC, NCCC

Job Vacancies, Employment, Employment Jobs

Counselors can Help with Role Overload

As counselors, we can help the couple eliminate or emphasize the less critical roles and help the couple stop attempting too many things. The couple then redefines themselves in a more realistic manner. Dual career couples are usually using time management skills, but we can help them alter less successful time management tasks.

Introducing mind-body stress reduction also proves very helpful to many couples. This includes: exercise, sensible eating, and ensuring that internal energy is not depleted because of the great amount of externalizing in their dual roles. A counselor can suggest co-joint career counseling to observe how work and home can best be balanced based on individual needs and developmental needs of the couple.

Couples can define their own sense of equity within their relationship. The distribution of roles does not necessarily have to be equal. It can be different depending on peaks and valleys of the couples work schedules.

The couple's relationship can be compared to an ever-growing, flexible landscape, which has to be watered and taken care of and re-evaluated for growth and stagnation each season. Each person in the relationship has their own personal feeling of comfort that should be respected and/or negotiated with respect to the roles that they perform.

New Support Systems

If a problem cannot be negotiated within a family, the family often relies on its support system for help. Some friends and family who are not in the same position may seem hurt that the couple has no time for socializing. The couple can occasionally be encouraged to socialize individually with family and friends, freeing each spouse from some social obligations.

The couple can also share work-related friends and activities to develop a truly supportive social network. Very often families with small children can concentrate on two well-established friendships that involve whole families socializing with each other including children and even pets!

"I Need a Wife" Syndrome

Lack of support can also occur within the dual career couple's own relationship. This occurs because the dual career couple is very often highly cognitive and achievement oriented, very futuristic--not known for their "in the moment" thinking. Both spouses may feel a sense of insufficient caretaking. "There is often a lack of an unofficial second person to provide the back up nurturing, empathetic listening and emotional support." Hence, the "I Need a Wife" Syndrome that is expressed by both the man and the woman.

Work is an easy escape route from conflicts in relationship. Both parties receive recognition from their second "work family." Couples can use the lack of time together as a defense against intimacy. Counselors can teach couples emotional expressiveness by getting into their feelings in counseling sessions. The counselor can support the concept that the existence of marital or family problems should not be viewed as a failure behavior, but that we are only human. Short-term psycho-educational counseling will assist couples in planning emotional time together.

The Carters (1995) write about relearning courting skills, date nights, long weekends and "playtime." If lack of intimacy is based on avoidance of conflict, however, underlying issues need to be brought to the surface and resolved through more traditional therapy.

Competitive Feelings

Sometimes spouses may "keep score" as to promotions, whose career takes precedence, and even who makes more money. The counselor can reassure the couple that it is natural to have "spousal rivalry" and reassure them that couples do have competitive feelings, which often stem from childhood sibling rivalry. The couple can develop rituals or celebrations that mutually acknowledge the relationship's existence and importance. These celebrations also recognize the behind the scenes support of the other partner, so it is both of their successes.

Occupational Mobility

Most experts agree that there is no easy solution when it relates to occupational moves. Wives seem to be less willing to relocate because of family considerations, but I have personally seen that the opposite is also true. Forty percent of trailing spouses are men.

Many career service organizations perform spouse relocation services. Organizations find companies and recruiters for trailing spouses and help the whole family adjust to new careers, schools for children, and family life in a new geographic location. BBCS performs those services in New Jersey.

Other couples choose commuter marriages, where both partners work in different cities and see each other on the weekends. I have personally seen three of these marriages end in divorce and the authors suggest that people speak to many couples in commuter marriages before they make the final decision as to whether to choose that option.

How Corporations are Responding to Work and Family Issues

Large corporations are very cognizant of the fact that a large number of their professional work force will be women in the year 2000, so they have made significant adjustments. Some of those adjustments include: Dress down Fridays, telecommuting (working from home with fax and modem) job sharing, flextime hours, and parenting support groups.

A significant number of workplaces have child care facilities on site or within their industrial park. The largest "family-friendly" employers in New Jersey are Motorola, Eddie Bauer, Merrill Lynch, Du Pont, Cigna, and Lucent Technologies. Employee Relations Departments are "feminizing the workplace." Concessions are made mainly for working moms. Men subtly are told to adhere to their traditional role expectations in the workplace...that is...career comes first. I hope that the Men's Movement will bring these issues to the forefront.

Themes are Emerging

The themes that are emerging in dual-career marriages are that men experience a certain amount of career freedom because of the wife's substantial income. Men said they were able to take more risks regarding their own career. Men and Women supported each other's work priorities in peak workloads.

Couples re-evaluated the equity relationship periodically and made appropriate changes. Both partners felt that the marriage was exciting and fresh because of increased individual independence, and couple companionship and partnership. Women noted that the marriage had an empowering quality. Each person could literally survive without the other, financially. Husband and wife were in the marriage because they both wanted to be there. Each spouse was considered on equal footing with the other.

Dual Career Couples - Facing the "Stress of Success" - How Families Cope Part I

by Beverly Baskin, Ed.S, MA, LPC, MCC, NCCC

Job Vacancies, Employment, Employment Jobs

The past several decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the way we view American Families. These changes are in terms of the way we view relationships and in the way we integrate career and family issues to obtain a satisfying and economically prosperous life.

In 1950, the typical family structure consisted of a full-time working father, who was the sole wage earner, and a stay-at-home mom. Today, less than 3% of the population fit that stereotype. Donald Super was truly ahead of his time when he wrote that people face a multitude of decisions in their roles as parents, workers, learners, and leisure participants. This construct has never been more critical than in the work force 2000, and it is truly related to life planning issues for both men and women.

Statistics

By the year 2000, 80% of the work force will be comprised of dual-earner couples. Twelve percent + of working adults are single mothers and fathers or displaced mothers. By the year 2000, women will represent 60% of the work force --a majority.

When it comes to relocating because of a promotion or a job change, couples will very often be faced with a dual career dilemma - his move or hers? (Stoltz-Loike, 1992). Actually, the term "dual-career couple" is an offshoot of the phrase "dual earner couple." In the dual career family or couple, wives are more career oriented rather than simply holding jobs, as in many cases of dual earner couples. Currently women and men ages 25 through 29 are equally likely to have four plus years of college, which I find very exciting.

In dual career couples, there is a higher commitment, higher level of training, and accumulated experience in their careers. Money is rarely the only motivation. Both husband and wife seek steady advancement and psychological, as well as financial satisfaction.

In her book, Marion Stoltz-Loike (1992) asks the question "Who is the dual career couple? Are they a pair of young professionals with much money to spend and little desire to be restricted by responsibility or are they a pair of haggard, overworked partners who have no time for themselves or one another?"

In younger dual career couples, there are several other factors that have been noted as these couples increasingly seek assistance from counselors in negotiating the particular stressors that arise from the dual-career lifestyle: Both spouses are typically more self reliant and self sufficient. They often have one child, but rarely more than two. Usually they do not have their children until the wives are established in their careers.

These couples are higher educated and have higher incomes than dual earners. Dual career women are more likely than women in traditional marriages to have had mothers who were employed when they were children. I find the last fact very interesting, because we are actually the professional role models for our daughters. Years ago, if someone's mom was a working mom, her daughter wanted to be a housewife because she felt she missed her mom being at home. Now women's roles are emerging differently with new commitment and interest in career as well as commitment to families.

According to Jim and Jane Carter, in their book, He Works, She Works (1995), the number one conflict faced by women in dual career families is role conflict. Actually, women are used to multiple roles. Taking on multiple responsibilities in connection with others traditionally gave us our power and our feeling of self worth. However women are so often in a situation of giving precedence to one role, either wife or mother or their career that causing great stress. It is referred to as role conflict, which results in role overload.

In contrast, married men may be given more leniency by society in their gender socialization to identify with work and family roles without trading one off against the other. The Carters feel that the number one conflict among male clients in dual career marriages is the lack of nurturing that they receive from their wife or significant other because their partner is not fulfilling the "feminine" part of their marriage or couples contract. There are expectations of intimacy that were supposed to continue after work and children.

I agree with the importance of these female and male conflicts and frequently experience it with my couple clients in their counseling sessions, and in my own life as a wife, mother, and career professional. The same conflicts were also validated in my presentation when I asked what counselors felt were the major issues in dual career families for both men and women. Both sexes responded with similar answers.

Here is the crux of the situation. Dual career couples have been proven to be the among the most successful marriages, yet also have the highest rate of divorce in the United States (Carter, J.& J.,1995). We, as counselors, can help reframe and restructure specific stressors facing Dual Career Couples.

Stressors encompass the following areas: Society's expectations and socialization of gender and changing sex roles; clarifying values of each couple; finding new support systems congruent with dual career family lifestyles; re-establishing the couples dependency needs and needs for nurturing within the marriage, aside from the external gratification they are both receiving from their work; working with conflicts related to power and competition, and helping the couple make educated decisions regarding occupational mobility.

Use of an Integrated Approach

Marion Stoltz-Loike (1992) writes that counselors can use a variety of theories when assisting with counseling interventions. An integrated counseling perspective incorporates approaches from career counseling, developmental psychology, couple and marriage counseling and, of course, gender psychology. Couples are counseled in individual sessions and co-joint sessions. It is very important for counselors to show the couple that societal stressors, rather than the actual marriage are where many problems lie.

Re-evaluate Gender Roles

Couples need to reevaluate their sex roles and integrate new notions of masculinity and femininity within the marriage. Career issues largely remain women's issues. Gender and feminist theory challenge those societal beliefs regarding gender socialization and how women have to choose one role over another. In counseling, couples learn to incorporate some positive opposite sex characteristics while accommodating losses of certain same sex role characteristics.

Counselors need to be coaches in helping couples to discover insights and a heightened sense of control to decrease the amount of personal guilt and blame. Counseling interventions prompt the couples to explore seeking outside help to make adjustments with work setting, child care assistance, cleaning help, parental leaves, alternative work schedules or relocation assistance.

The Leader’s Longing

By Richard Barrett

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

I don’t care who you are. Or, what you do. When I walk into your organization I want to feel your passion. I want to see your courage I want to experience your spirit I want to know that you care about creativity.

I don’t care who you are. Or, what you do. When I walk into your organization I want to feel your caring. I want to see your love I want to experience your compassion I want to know that you are working for the common good.

I don’t care who you are. Or, what you do. When I walk into your organization I want to feel your openness. I want to see your trust I want to experience your honesty I want to know that you will always speak the truth.

I don’t care who you are. Or, what you do. When I walk into your organization I want to feel your commitment. I want to see your engagement I want to experience your hope I want to know that you will do what is necessary to get the job done.

I don’t care who you are. Or, what you do. When I walk into your organization I want to feel your authenticity. I want to see your tears I want to experience your joy I want to know that you will never hide who you are.

I don’t care who you are. Or, what you do. When I walk into your organization I want to feel your yearning. I want to see your searching I want to experience your longing I want to know that you will never stop learning.

I don’t care who you are. Or, what you do. When I walk into your organization I want to experience you.

Jobless Think They Should Be Picky about Next Job, But Not Too Picky

By Jane Genova

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

The 15 million jobless think they should be picky about what their next job will be, but not too picky

Some of those jobless were surveyed by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, reports The New York Times. On the one hand, the jobless didn't agree that they should take just any job. After all, in America a job is something more than just earning a living. It is taken as a sign of a professional identity, social status, and even considered a place to make friends. On the other hand, the jobless agreed that if their former industry had been eliminated, then sure they should accept temporary assignments, lower pay, lousy hours, and enter a field they had no experience in.

Those against safety-net mechanisms such as extended unemployment benefits want the jobless to be forced to take a job, any job. Forget being choosy. That in itself, the anti-safety netters judge, would bring down the nation's unemployment level.

Misemployment

by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Most unemployed are out of work for reasons beyond their control, though some do choose to refrain from working for certain periods of time. They may be in school, trying something on their own, or just want a break from working. We have indicated our expectation that a large proportion of people who are unemployed will soon have jobs again.

Those who do have jobs are described as being "employed." Definitions for this word are universally accepted.

Another word is creeping into our vocabulary. Misemployment. The term is not even listed in many dictionaries. Where we do find the word, the definition for "misemploy" is shown as wrong or mistaken employment. Use of this term is creeping into the lexicon of descriptors in the employment market.

We suggest that to be misemployed is to be working, but in a job or career that really does not fit for you. Research suggests more than half, perhaps as many as 80-percent, of workers are in jobs for which their personality and interests really aren't well-matched. People are in those jobs because someone offered them an opportunity, or they believed it was a stepping-stone to the kind of job they really want. In some cases, workers are stuck in these jobs because they do not know how to escape . . . or where to go if they "could" get out of the uncomfortable job.

Over the years, a great number of people have slipped into misemployment because they did not know how to find the right kind of job or employment opportunity for them, yet they needed a job. It was not until the late 1990s that workers began to realize they had choices. Just about the time we would have expected them to begin learning more about themselves, evaluating job opportunities, and making significant life changes, the economy slowed down and the atrocities of September 11 altered employment thinking. As economies expand again, we forecast that more people will seek jobs that are more consistent with their personal preferences. Misemployment will drop as people assert themselves to control their own careers.