Laid off but not forgotten, workers can use job-search programs

When Kaye Lehmann learned she was losing her position with AT&T in New Jersey she took advantage of all of the job-search programs the company offered.

She took classes in resume and cover-letter writing, interviewing, networking and financial planning.

Lehmann even attended seminars for people who wanted to start their own businesses. “I didn’t think I was going to open a business, but I thought I should go to everything. What else did I have to do?”

Like AT&T, high-tech companies in Northern Colorado offer a range of programs and services to employees who are losing their jobs due to layoffs.

Agilent Technologies, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Celestica Inc. all have announced layoffs in recent years and each has offered programs to help employees navigate the transition. These companies contract with outside agencies, create internal services or link employees to the Larimer County Workforce Center to help them find job-search, placement and training options.

Whether or not workers take advantage of those programs varies, company executives say. There are some, like Lehmann, who explore every option and gather as much information as possible. Others, sometimes supported by retirement or employee buyout packages, skip them. The decision is sometimes colored by emotions like resentment, anger and fear. Some services are offered online, making it difficult to track participation.

Lehmann was philosophical in the face of losing her job. While she wasn’t thrilled, she figured she needed to arm herself with as much information about job hunting and the labor market as she could. “I feel that if you go to these things, at least you have some better tools in your job-hunting belt to work with.”

Part of the package

When Celestica announced in March that it would close its Fort Collins plant, the process of helping the nearly 500 regular employees find new positions began immediately, said Lisa Muenkel, company spokeswoman.

“Our severance package includes job-search assistance,” Muenkel said. Celestica has contracted with the Larimer County Workforce Center to bring workshops, classes and seminars on site as well as hooking employees up with services the center offers in the community.

“We feel these services are very competitive and helpful to our employees and they have been well used,” Muenkel said.

Shannon Williams, career development specialist at the Larimer County Workforce Center, said her agency has been active at the Celestica plant helping employees understand what’s available to them, what paths they need to take and what services the workforce center officers.

Williams said that the workforce center got on the case immediately after the announcement of the plant closure. “It’s what we call rapid response. When there’s any business closure or layoff, the state also gets involved and we try to set up rapid-response workshops with the company.”

The workshops explain unemployment benefits, go over community resources and look at job-search techniques.

Among the resources available to displaced workers are one-on-one counseling, resume preparation assistance, mock interviews and information about interviewing techniques and personalized search help, Williams said.

New skills, different job

About half of the Celestica employees have been interested in help finding jobs that fit their existing skills and half are looking at retraining for jobs in other fields, Williams said.

Celestica workers who want to retrain tend to be interested in jobs in the medical field, heating ventilation and air-conditioning work, drafting and commercial truck driving, Williams said. The full range of future employment interests is much broader, however. “We have people who are interested from A to Z.”

Even workers seeking employment in the same or similar field may find they need to retool a bit, polishing resumes, sharpening interview skills and networking.

Lehmann, who moved to Colorado from New Jersey in 2004, said she learned she needed to take a close look at her skills and experiences in a large corporation and understand how they might fit in smaller businesses.

For instance, she said, “I was still using corporate terms that I thought made perfect sense, but they weren’t the right words to sell yourself to a small to medium-size business.”

She also learned that she would need to get out and network and practice selling herself. Membership in the Northern Colorado networking group NoCoNet helped Lehmann meet not only others in a similar position, but also experts in the job-search field.

NoCoNet is a career networking group for under- and unemployed professionals in Northern Colorado.

Same company, different job

Hewlett-Packard uses a redeployment system that gives workers a chance to find new jobs within the company when work-force restructuring or job cuts are necessary.

Brigida Bergkamp, an HP company spokeswoman, said employees receive advance notice of job cuts and then have four weeks to seek new positions within HP. They continue their work assignments while accessing information about open positions at HP and tapping an online career support center.

The career center “serves as a one-stop shop for program participants by facilitating easy access to information on topics such as resume writing, interviewing advice, the internal job search tool and country contact information,” Bergkamp said.

After the four-week redeployment period ends, Bergkamp said employees move into a nine-week work-force reduction program. They continue to receive salary and benefits for the period, a severance payment based on years of service and can participate in outplacement/career counseling support by an outside provider.

For Lehmann, meanwhile, a six-month job search in Colorado has yielded a position in sales. The work is somewhat different from her work as district manager for AT&T, evidence of another lesson the experience has taught her, Lehman said. “One has to be flexible and open to new ideas.”

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