I’ve received numerous e-mails from those of you who have been intrigued by the posting regarding what it’s like to search for work when you are in your forties. For those of you that haven’t read that specific posting, I recently conducted an intensive job search session with a 40-something year old woman from NJ, who must quickly find work or she may be forced to make some difficult decisions regarding her home. Like many women who are returning to the workforce, my client is a single mom who never imagined herself in this position. What makes her unique is that she is working through this with more determination than I’ve seen in a long time, rather than sitting back and complaining about the lousy cards she has been dealt.
It seems quite a few of you are in a position similar to my clients or know of others who are trying to re-enter the workforce in the middle of our country’s worst recession. You’ve asked me to keep you updated on her progress as events unfold.
Here we go…It’s the end of week two for my client and she has made some huge strides. She received an offer for a paid internship that will allow her for now to stay in her home. Last week she also received a call from a prominent employer asking her to come in for an interview. She told me that she believes this happened because I encouraged her to pick up the phone and call the Director of HR to alert her that her on-line application was on-route. In doing so, she was also able to get a name for her cover letter so that she wasn’t addressing it to some unknown person who resides somewhere in the abyss. She believes this set her apart from the hundreds of others who must have also applied.
It’s the little things that set candidates like my client apart. I asked her if she thought she would have been invited in for an interview prior to our working together. She replied, “Absolutely not! I never would have made the call to the Director of HR.”
Look out NJ, my client is now picking up the phone and setting up appointments, rather than waiting passively for others to call. Shouldn’t you be doing the same?
Roberta
