by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

August 20, 2009

Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest held a seminar on resume writing and interview skills Aug. 4 at Temple Emanu-El of West Essex in Livingston (“Job seekers’ workshop reflects degree of need,” NJJN, Aug. 13). NJJN spoke at length with participants whose stories reflect the current tight job market, especially for older workers (for other profiles, see “Working all the angles,” Aug. 13).

A fresh start

Benett Rosen
Security systems sales and marketing

Benett Rosen, 59, of West Orange describes the first thing you do when you lose your job: “You concentrate on all your old friends to let them know you’re out of work.” The problem is, he said, the first thing they ask is “What you are going to do now?”

He said he had known for about six months that his most recent employment situation just wasn’t working out. When the family-run company asked him to take a pay cut, he took a hike instead and left the firm July 1.

At least he has an answer to the question on his friends’ minds, not to mention his own. He has decided to start his own business. Again. A security systems sales and marketing executive, for 22 years he ran his own company that designed and sold fire systems. In 2005, the business ran into hard times.

Now, he’s thinking of taking his expertise in a slightly new direction: mass notification. Building on the idea of fire alarms, mass notification is like an upgrade from bells and horns to a speaker system that enables authorities to identify the location of a threat, whether fire, terrorist, or some other danger and advise people on what action to take. It’s putting homeland security into your fire alarm system, as Rosen describes it.

Asked if he is concerned about starting a new business in this economy, he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the perfect time to start. Everyone else is downsizing, cutting back. They’re worried about how to save their businesses, cutting and slashing. It’s the perfect time to start.”

But, Rosen acknowledged, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to secure loans now. “I’ll have to deal with that. The last business I financed out of my own pocket. This time, I’ll probably look for a venture capitalist,” he said.

He’s also looking for an engineer — and that’s what brought him to Temple Emanu-El and the JVS seminar. “I know from past experience that I can do the sales and marketing and finance, and I need an inside guy, an engineer who can design some products that don’t exist yet,” he said. “You never know who you might meet. I’m looking for an electrical engineer to be my partner.”

Rosen estimates that the business will take three months to get off the ground, and three years before it’s running “the way I’d like.” In the meantime, his family has had to make some adjustments.

“We’ve cut back on a lot of things: we used to eat out a lot. Now we eat out almost not at all. I used to spend $10 for lunch because that’s what was available. Now I grab something at home, and I actually feel better. And it’s saved a lot of money. We’re just more careful about discretionary spending.”

His wife also brings in some money, working in the jewelry business. His older son, 27, is out of the house. But his 22-year-old son will have to transfer to Rutgers University instead of returning to Northeastern University in Boston, where he has completed about a year and a half of study toward an undergraduate degree. “I just can’t afford $50,000 a year,” Rosen said.

In the meantime, he said, while he expected to feel depressed after leaving his recent job, he found instead that “the depression was worse when I sold my old business — until I realized, the hell with it; it’s just a business.”

Now, said Rosen, what he feels is “excitement” at the prospect of starting anew.

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‘I wish my daddy gets a job’

David Arzt
Information technology

David Arzt, 47, of North Caldwell lost his job in the summer of 2008 when the IT consulting firm he was working for disbanded, but he wasn’t worried. In fact, he said, “I was pretty confident.” His three children, then 12, nine, and four, were home for the summer, so he was relaxed about a job search. He figured they would live on their savings and his wife’s part-time salary through the summer and find something quickly in the fall.

And then the bottom fell out of the economy.

“All my leads — all the job market — totally died. That’s when it got more nerve-wracking and scary,” he said. “There was an uh-oh feeling.”

That period of unemployment affected the entire family. The stress set him on edge, and his children would ask, “Why is Daddy doing carpool all the time?” he said.

In October one incident made him realize how worried the children were. When he took a closer look at the shofar project his daughter had made in school for Rosh Hashana, he found her New Year’s wish on the back. “It said, ‘I wish my daddy gets a job.’ Thank God I hadn’t seen it earlier because it ripped me up. And she had never said a word.”

But by then, things had gotten better. Arzt had started networking intensively, mining old relationships. And one paid off.

“I contacted someone in October I had worked for years ago,” he said. “I dropped all my airs and, even though I hadn’t spoken to the person in 10 years, I called. I had to call twice. They did not respond at first. But I was persistent. It turned out they were just busy and forgot about the call. When I finally got hold of them, they said sure, come in.”

Seven weeks later, he was hired as a consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But because it was not full-time work, Arzt said, he did not breathe a full sigh of relief. Instead, he said, he felt he had a lot to prove.

“Every day, it was, ‘Thank God I’m here; I’ve got to do a great job and slowly build over time.’ You have to build back your confidence, too, when you start working. No matter how great you are, you lose some confidence when you’re unemployed.”

In April, he was hired full-time. “It turned out to be work I’m good at and have done in the past. I’m still holding my breath. Anything can happen, but I’m feeling better and better.”

He’s taking his experience and sharing it with others, creating an employment assistance committee at Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex in Caldwell. The plan is to run programs each month to help other synagogue members in transition.

“We’ll offer sessions on Linked In and resume writing,” Arzt said. “We’ll bring in JVS. I’m planning to volunteer to run a program. I’m a manager and I hire, so I can help people with IT resumes.”

He came to the Aug. 4 JVS program to get ideas; he’s also begun speaking at JVS programs. His two biggest pieces of advice? Mine old relationships. And don’t think children don’t worry.

“They’re feeling it, even if they don’t say a word,” he said. “Explain it’s okay, or do what you can to keep communicating with them. They hear the news. They tie it all together. ‘The world is ending, daddy’s home.’ It’s going to be a tough time.”

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