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In 2003 Heather Resnick of Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, took a government-sponsored course on professional assessment.
"I was almost 50 years old, I'd been an at-home mom for 20 years, and I had successfully completed my last treatment for breast cancer," said Resnick, who is married and has two children. "I wanted to figure out what to do. Even though I was a certified paralegal, had a college degree and had been active in volunteer work, I wasn't too confident. But I knew I wanted to go back to my original dream of writing."
And she wasn't the only one in the class of 20 women who felt that way. "I saw the women were absolutely fearful about re-entering the world of work, as was I," said Resnick, today an author, speaker and researcher on women re-entering the paid labor market after long absences. "Most of the women were older, some immigrants, some had been fired, some were divorced, some had had health problems. All were unemployed."
The class helped Resnick realize she "had skills that were needed, and everyone was so supportive I began to feel the way I felt when I did volunteer work."
Resnick was a founder in 1990 of the Vaughan Child Parent Resource Center in Vaughan, a suburb of Toronto.
In 2004, after successfully re-entering the work world by serving a one-month, unpaid editorial internship, Resnick decided what she really wanted was to write about problems of re-entering the work force. "I found going back to work was a hard transition," she said. "I wanted to work for myself."
Her newly published book is titled "Women Reworked: Empowering women in employment transition" (Creative Bound Inc., $29.95).
To write it she studied 14 re-entry women in the United States and Canada. The average woman she studied was in her early 50s, divorced with two children. She had been out of the work force on average for 12 years when she started her jobhunt.
"The women returned to work for financial reasons and to have a sense of purpose," said Resnick. "They wanted to be tax-paying citizens."
It took, on average, three years to find a job. In Canada, as in the United States, employers do not view mature women as attractive candidates.
"I did a survey of the top 40 employers and all said they would hire a re-entry woman, but only in entry-level jobs and beginning salaries, despite their experience - unless they had updated skills," the author said. "Even though corporations pay lip service to so-called `advantages' of older workers, they want to hire younger ones."
One solution might be temporary work.
"It gets your foot in the door and gives you a chance to show you have skills and to update them and (you) are a team player," the author said. "And don't run out and take the first job that comes your way because in three months you'll be out looking for a job again. Even if you have to take a survival job, still continue to think about what you really want to do."
For workers with extended absences from paid employment, Resnick urges researching the industry you're interested in to make sure it has a future.
"There's no point in going back to school for a job that isn't going to be there," she said. "And when you job hunt, have an open mind. It might be helpful to be willing to take a lesser job at a lesser salary and, after proving yourself, work it into a full-time job."
She stresses the importance of networking and volunteer work for contacts.
She cites the success of a divorced woman with two children who was an at-home mom for several years. A former computer technician, she updated her skills, volunteered at a community computer training program - and after six months was offered a full-time, paying job there.
Resnick, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 and is now free of cancer, stresses the importance of networks and support groups.
"You have to know you don't walk this journey alone - there are many other women out there like you," she said.
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(Carol Kleiman is the workplace columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Send e-mail to ckleiman@tribune.com.)
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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
