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Summertime offers a good chance to land that job

By Thomas Watterson, Globe Correspondent, 7/11/04

Kate Bernhardt was laid off from her job at a Cambridge consulting company last year. Like many other people in that situation, she decided to take the summer off before she looked for a new job. After all, it would be the first summer she had off since she was a teenager. Plus, it gave her time to spend with her daughter, who was 11 years old at the time.

Bernhardt did some freelance work to pay the bills but didn't start job hunting until early this year. But faced with a stronger economy and an improving job market, Bernhardt did not take the summer off. Last month, she took a job as a multimedia producer at a technology start-up in Maynard.

Bernhardt learned something that savvy job hunters already know: While the hiring process slows down in the summer, those who hit the beach and put off their hunt until fall are missing a chance to land good jobs.

That may be especially true this summer. With the labor market staging a comeback, more employers are hiring, say specialists. And, with fewer people searching for work, those who keep looking during this time don't face much competition.

''Even if people have the financial ability to take the summer off, we recommend they don't, just because we feel the market's turning,'' says Anne Hawley Stevens, managing partner at ClearRock, a Boston executive and career development firm. Many companies, she says, are planning projects they want to get off the ground in September or October. If the companies need new employees to do that, those workers must be hired this summer.

''If people wait until after Labor Day, they might be too late,'' Stevens says.

For those who receive a healthy severance package, the urge to take the summer off after getting pink-slipped is understandable. And during the latest recession many job seekers did just that.

''In the last couple of years, we were working with candidates who would say, 'I'm going to take the summer off. I'm going to travel to Europe, whatever, because the market is not good,''' says David Hayes, the president of HireMinds, a Cambridge staffing firm that works with biotechnology and high-tech companies. ''Usually, I would argue against doing that.''

Denis O'Connell took that advice. Laid off from his job at a company building websites for packaged goods companies at the end of January, he considered taking a few months off. If the layoff notice had come this spring, he might have taken the whole summer off. But he saw what could happen if he went that route.

''I had some friends who got laid off two or three years ago,'' he recalls. One of them said, 'I'm definitely going to take some time off. I'm not going to go to work until I get done with my severance.' He ended up not being able to find a job for over a year.''

With that lesson in mind, O'Connell took a month off before he started looking for work, but he also took that time to learn new software programs and update his résumé.

Then, he began networking with friends and former co-workers, one of whom put him in touch with HireMinds. By the end of April, he had a job offer. He started working at Mindseye Inc., a Boston developer of Web-based products and services, in May.

''The market is dramatically different this year,'' Hayes at HireMinds says. ''There's a four or fivefold increase in the number of positions that we're staffing than there were this time last year.''

Recent surveys support this view. According to Manpower Inc., a job recruitment and consulting company, 43 percent of Boston-area companies it interviewed plan to hire more employees in the third quarter of this year, while another 57 percent expect to keep their current staff levels. None of the companies said they plan to reduce staff.

''This is the third quarter of improving numbers,'' says Mark Spengler, area manager for Manpower. ''More companies are indicating that they're going to be adding to staff, and fewer companies are saying that they intend to decrease the size of their staff.''

Another survey, by Monster Worldwide, the parent company of Monster.com, found that demand for workers, and online job recruitment activity, increased for the sixth consecutive month in June. While nearly every region of the country showed improvement, the New England region posted the greatest increase from May to June, the survey found.

''What we're seeing in June is a very strong labor market recovery,'' says Steve Pogorzelski, president of Maynard-based Monster. ''I would encourage the job seeker to take advantage of this uptick in demand while it lasts.''

Human resource professionals agree there is more hiring activity taking place as companies gear up for what they hope will be a better business climate in the fall.

''In general, the job market is improving in the Boston area,'' says Russell Campanello, senior vice president for human resources at Keane Inc., a Boston information technology consulting firm. ''We hear it from our candidates. They're interviewing with us and they're interviewing with other firms as well.''

In the four weeks ended mid-June, Keane hired 14 new employees, Campanello says. Some were a response to new hires at Keane's clients. ''Our clients tell us that they're hiring, which means we hire people in advance of our clients' needs to place people on assignment,'' he says.

Many employees receive a severance package when they're laid off. This package may include a lump-sum payment equal to several months' salary. While it may be tempting - especially in the summer - to live on this money for a few months, Campanello argues against it. ''If you can get some severance and find yourself a job, you're better off turning that severance into a savings account, rather than a tan.''

Summer is also a crucial time to connect with potential employers and lay the necessary groundwork for landing a job later in the year, say recruiters.

''In my experience, the summer months have turned out to be the most productive time of the year. Summer is the best time to plant seeds, set up interviews, make calls,'' says Michael Kulesza, the president of Anthony Michael & Co., a Medford executive search firm.

''You actually have an advantage if you stay ahead of the game during the summer, because three-quarters of your peers are going the other route,'' says Dan Kilgore, director of recruiting for Getronics in Tewksbury, which has been hiring in the past few months.

Job hunters may have to be a little more patient in the summer, he adds, because some of the people a candidate needs to interview with may be on vacation. ''For the average job, it might mean interviewing five different people. Normally that's likely to happen in two or three weeks. In the summer, purely because of logistics, it might stretch to six weeks.''

Although the job market is improving, it may take longer for some people to find work than others, say specialists, so a person who takes the summer off may find their severance running out before they get a new job.

''It's been taking anywhere from eight months to two years for people to get jobs,'' says Judy Bottkol, an employment specialist at Jewish Vocational Services in Boston. ''I've had clients, very talented clients, who've been out more than two years.''

Still, she notes that more people are getting interviews and job offers this summer than in the past few years. ''Employers are not feeling as skittish as before,'' Bottkol says.

So should job seekers tan or plan?

''Take the summer off because you want to, but don't do it because you don't think people are hiring,'' says Nancy Hayes Bevington, a vice president and career counselor at Right Management Consultants in Boston. ''Now that the economy is seeing a little uptick, I think there's more likelihood that people are going to hire this summer than in any summer in two or three years.''

''Unless people are gamblers, I would suggest that the time is now,'' Monster's Pogorzelski says.

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