by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

August 13, 2009

At an Aug. 4 seminar on resume writing and interview skills sponsored by Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest, NJJN spoke at length with participants whose stories reflect the current tight job market, especially for older workers. The event took place at Temple Emanu-El of West Essex in Livingston.

‘I see everyone else going through it’

Tammy Abramowitz
Judaics and Spanish teacher

Tammy Abramowitz, a Jewish educator and Spanish teacher, is underemployed. She’s in transition from being a part-time working mother to an empty-nester, and considers herself “very typical of a lot of women in my age group,” she said.

Although she started her career in international development, Abramowitz, 48, who has three children, decided teaching was a better match for a mother. “I did all the volunteering, and all the fund-raising for the schools. I have all these skills — organization and logistics — and then the kids leave the house and I’m having a hard time,” said the West Orange resident.

To make matters worse, as one of the panelists at the Aug. 4 program pointed out, “employers are no longer willing to have you transition on their dime.” It’s something Abramowitz has heard before.

Recently divorced, she holds an undergraduate degree in Spanish literature and a master’s degree in education from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Working three days a week at Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School of Girls in Teaneck, she wants to supplement those hours with “something challenging,” that perhaps involves “overseas work.” She offers experience living and working overseas in Costa Rica, Israel, and London.

Abramowitz has been looking for work in earnest for about six months, and despite several interviews, hasn’t found the right job. One recent position in overseas development involved fund-raising for a Latin American organization, which satisfied her interest in using her Spanish fluency and her passion for working with other countries. But it involved working 100 percent on commission. “That’s very hard in this economy,” she said.

She said she does find consolation in knowing she isn’t alone. “If it gets frustrating, I see everyone else going through it. There are so many free sources and great organizations helping, that I don’t feel isolated, and now there are tools like Linked In and Facebook, so we have help we never would have had in the past.”

Still, she said, she is feeling the squeeze. “COBRA’s expensive, college is expensive, tuition is expensive,” she said. One of her sons is a student at Washington University in St. Louis, one is about to leave for a gap year studying at a yeshiva in Jerusalem, and one is entering his senior year at The Frisch School, a Jewish day school in Paramus.

“You cut back, you think very carefully about what you’re spending, what you’re doing, and you make decisions about what’s really important,” she said.

So if she can’t find something in international work? “Okay, I can continue to teach,” she said. But she’s still looking for more than part-time work.

* * *

‘I’ve always worked’

Dorri Goldman
Synagogue executive director

Dorri Goldman of West Orange lost her job after eight years as executive director of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck on a Thursday in December 2008 with no warning. The following Monday, she said, “I was replaced by a woman half my age.” Although she declined to give her age, she did say she had been an executive director at a number of synagogues for over 20 years and had no plans to retire.

“I’ve always worked. Since I was 10 years old I’ve been working — as a babysitter, taking care of families, doing something. I don’t want to sit and do nothing. I want to get back into the workforce. I love working. I love working for the Jewish people. And I think I’m very good at what I do.”

She finds the upside to options that might have been less appealing in a different era. “I am the age I am; there’s nothing I can do about it. I have a second interview coming up at a nearby synagogue. It pays half of what I was earning, but it’s just three miles away from my home instead of 25 miles.”

Luckily, her husband, an accountant, can support them financially. But that doesn’t dull the emotional impact of being unemployed.

“In the beginning, it did affect me,” she said. “I was depressed and angry.” To keep busy, she often works several days a week in her husband’s office. She surfs the Internet looking for opportunities. She’s started doing needlepoint, and she spends plenty of time with her four grown children and nine grandchildren, who live in West Orange and in Woodmere, Plainview, and Ithaca in New York.

The one thing about the job market she would change if she could is employers’ responses to resumes.

“I must send out five to six resumes every week. I find that a lot of people do not answer resumes. I never hear back. I know they get hundreds of resumes, but I think it’s rude. All they have to do is say they received it,” she said.

* * *

‘I can’t do nothing’

Mayer Kass
Real estate property manager

Mayer Kass of Wanaque realizes age is affecting his job prospects. Dressed in a navy suit and blue striped dress shirt and carrying an attache case, he looks ready for an executive suite. But at 78, he said, “I have been sending my resume but — no interviews.”

Kass is a kind of jack of all trades. He holds a real estate license and has worked as a loan officer and a paralegal; he’s done some accounting work and is currently working part-time on inventory at Sears. “I had another part-time telemarketing job, working nights,” he said, “but business was so bad, they fired the whole crew.” He would like to work full-time as a real estate property manager, the work he enjoys the most.

It’s been seven years since he had a full-time job, and it’s affecting his finances.

“I’m in chapter seven, I lost my condo, I filed bankruptcy, and my credit rating is ‘pfft’ all the way down,” he said, making the sound of a balloon losing all its air. “My wife and I collect social security,” he said. They moved back to New Jersey from Florida in 2002 when his wife had cancer and wanted to be near their children and grandchildren. In the meantime, he continues working at Sears three days each week.

“I’m a workaholic. I can’t do nothing,” he said.

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