Finding work can be a lot of work

Published 9:20 am Monday, December 21, 2009

The holiday season came early for Troy Bleeker and his family.

A week before Thanksgiving, the 44-year-old Rochester man landed a job. It was the culmination of an 11-month search that began soon after Bleeker learned that his job at IBM was being eliminated and involved more than 350 contacts with individual employers.

Bleeker’s response to finding a job in the most challenging economic environment since the Great Depression, you might think, would border on something akin to euphoria, but his reaction was more tempered.

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“I would use more the word relieved, because I got tired of the job searching for a job,” said Bleeker, who began work as a business analyst for Mayo Clinic this week. “It is a job to hunt for work, and it’s not a job I enjoyed.”

His employment coincided with the most promising jobs report since the recession began two years ago. It showed that the national economy stopped hemorrhaging jobs in November, an event that was hailed by economists and state officials as a sign of recovering economic health.

Instead of six-figure job losses, only 11,000 jobs disappeared last month, and the unemployment rate dropped to 10 percent from 10.2 percent.

Even so, analysts are still talking in unmistakable tones of caution. While employers were no longer shedding jobs, they weren’t hiring at a pace to significantly dent the jobless rate.

The Rochester area’s unemployment rate stands at 5.7 percent, much lower than the 10 percent national rate, but considerably higher than the local rate was last year.

“The good news is that layoff activity has started to fall off, so we’re seeing fewer people losing their jobs,” said Jennifer Ridgeway, a regional analyst in Rochester for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. “But what we’re not really seeing yet is rapid hiring.”

In a sign of how scarce jobs continue to be, there are nearly 10 unemployed people for every job opening, Ridgeway said.

Bleeker’s own experience illustrates how even the most motivated job seeker with a solid resume and credentials can find looking for work in today’s slack economy a challenge.

A 20-year IBM employee, Bleeker began his job search once it was clear his job would end in February. An optimist by nature, Bleeker started his search confident that he would find a job relatively soon.

But as time went on and weeks stretched into months, Bleeker realized he was in it for the long haul. Realizing there were a limited number of jobs in his area of expertise, Bleeker expanded the scope of his search to include the entire Midwest, from Chicago to Texas. The family budget was pared back and Bleeker was forced to tap into his savings to make ends meet.

“I thought, if I just do this and really pound on it, it’s going to come through for me,” he said. “But then in the summer, it’s like, ’I can see this is going to take a while.”’

Bleeker did many of the things that job experts recommend. His search was methodical and disciplined. He maintained and cultivated a growing network of contacts. He documented every conversation and e-mail exchange with hundreds of potential employers.

His period of joblessness also was a period of introspection, of taking stock of his life and considering new career paths. He applied to be a youth minister at his church. He dabbled in photography, launching his own Web site and picked up a couple of jobs.

“I could tell it wasn’t going to pay the bills, but I really enjoyed doing it,” he said.

In the end, Bleeker said he decided he “really enjoyed” doing business analysis work. When the job at Mayo came along — it was one of two jobs offered — it was accepted both with relief and a sense of gratitude.

“God’s always a big part of my faith, and I thank him for both the times that were difficult and the offers that eventually came, he said. “That would be advice to anyone else. That’s what holds you through.”