Make a plan to readjust to working
By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 6/12/05
You've been out of work for a long time when, after tracking down every lead, you are called in for a series of interviews with corporate managers. Finally, you receive and accept a job offer. Time to celebrate, you say.
Not so fast. There is plenty of work still ahead because you'll need a plan to readjust to a structured workplace.
Reentry issues are often downplayed by people returning to work because they are so eager to prove themselves, employment specialists say. However, focusing in advance on time management, the corporate culture, and the art of asking a lot of work-related questions will go a long way toward making good first impressions, these specialists emphasize.
The ability to adapt quickly to a new job or getting "sea legs again," takes some doing, particularly after lengthy layoffs.
"You have to recalibrate yourself - in short, learning how to be a team player again, which is difficult when you had been used to being a lone ranger," said Roberta Chinsky Matuson, a human resources consultant with offices in Brookline and Northampton.
Essentially, the trick for any new hire is to relate to colleagues while maintaining a positive, can-do attitude, according to career development consultants Terry Del Percio and Baird K. Brightman.
"Once you've connected with fellow employees, they can be considered resources" for navigating the new company, said Del Percio, principal of The Work Strategies Co. of Beverly. "Don't let any residual low self-esteem get in the way of presenting yourself with confidence and strength in your new job," said Brightman, a psychologist and president of Worklife Strategies of Sudbury. "Compliment yourself on the strength and character it took for you to survive a job loss and get back on the horse." Yet everything will not fall into place all at once for someone starting a new job, cautioned Jane McHale, a career coach in Newton. "There's an evaluation period - especially during the first month - when you have to find out things that work, other things that don't."
Three individuals who reentered the workforce in the last year after being unemployed for more than two years, on average, discussed the changes they've had to make to become productive employees again. A fourth, who is now working part time and will return to full-time work by year's end, shared her thoughts on preparing for when much of her time is no longer her own.
When Katherine Prum, 43, of Gloucester returned to work last December as a senior consultant for CM Access, a placement agency for marketing professionals in Charlestown, she was overwhelmed. "I was kind of in shock because my life was no longer free," said Prum, who had been laid off twice since 2001, first by Lotus IBM and then by a Gloucester nonprofit. She had been out of work for two years.
"My major challenge," Prum continued, "was to get back to a routine day-to-day schedule. One of the first things I had to do was to find the best routes to Charlestown. It took me about two months to figure out what was the optimum driving time."
She then gave herself the assignment of "learning how work was done and how I was going to plug my way into the corporate culture.
"I did that by asking many questions and asking for suggestions," she said. "Although I knew the marketing landscape, this was essentially a new career for me because I had to learn about being an executive recruiter."
Initially, she was concerned, she said, about how she would be received by the firm's five employees, all of them younger. "Because I've been the new kid on the block before, I know that in small groups there are always fears that new people will change the culture, the dynamic," she said. "But I also know from experience that newcomers have to demonstrate that they have something to contribute, which I think I've done."
For a while, Prum said she found herself "mentally exhausted at the end of the day. It helped, though, that there was another new hire, a person who would become an ally." Now six months into the job, Prum said she feels completely at ease with her new responsibilities.
Gwendolyn Stokes, 56, of Dorchester, said she's now settling in nicely as a case manager for the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans in Boston. She was hired in March as a file clerk and was subsequently promoted.
In preparing for her new job, Stokes, who had been jobless for 3 years, said she first had to become accustomed to "getting up early in the morning and being ready for work." She works from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays.
Then, she said, she had to shop for appropriate business attire. But her biggest asset has been developing "and maintaining a positive attitude" about her work, she said.
Like Stokes, Krishna Krovi, of Ashland, said the biggest change for him "was getting out of the house at a certain hour so that I could meet the train to Boston," where he has worked since February as business development manager for Popstick Inc., a small online marketing firm.
"I also had to meet more people than I had been used to and to communicate regularly with clients," said Krovi, 39, who had been out of work for two years. "With a small company like ours, you have to produce from the start." The firm's Boston and New York City offices have 30 employees between them.
Georgia Moir of Melrose is just starting to work part time for her husband Scott's company, DataGrid Network Services, also of Melrose. She is technical director of the company, an information technology specialist. Later this year, she'll be assuming full-time duties, she said.
Her major readjustments are twofold, said Moir, 41, whose last job was in 2000 as a network systems administrator for a now-defunct multinational company. She married that year and a son, Ian, was born in September 2001.
"First, I have to work harder because I'm held to a higher standard since this is a family business," Moir said. "Secondly, I want to present a very polished professional image with clients in a male-dominated field." Fortunately, she said, she has been able to keep up with advances in hardware and software technology over the last five years. "I have a Microsoft certified professional designation and, because I do, I get technical updates regularly from Microsoft."
Whether working for large or small companies - and her husband's firm has five employees - Moir said her "people skills and business knowledge" have always enabled her to connect with employees of any age or experience level.
To further polish her image, Moir has retained Mary Lou Andre, president of Needham's Organization by Design, to assist her in selecting business apparel.
"Georgia has a clear idea of her company's dress code, and since she's involved in sales, suits are appropriate," Andre said.
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