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For the past five months, I have been participating in the Chicago Career Tech (CCT) job retraining program, and have had the opportunity to complete the hands-on training portion of the program at Changing Worlds, an educational arts nonprofit organization that provides oral history, writing and art programs for K-12 students and educators in Chicago. Developing my new professional skills at Changing Worlds has been a dream come true, and I owe my placement there to United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, which acts as CCT’s official nonprofit recruitment partner.

I have a Bachelor’s degree in TV Production and Directing and have completed about half of a Master’s degree in Theology. Over the years, I’ve had a variety of jobs—working as a bank teller manager, department store sales specialist and middle school teacher. Most recently, I worked as an administrative assistant at a dialysis center, but was laid off in March 2011.

My sister learned about CCT last July and emailed me a link to their website. The Project Management program caught my eye as I had worked on various special projects in my previous jobs and knew about the Project Management field, but did not have any official certification. I prayed over whether I should apply, and ultimately decided that this was an opportunity I had to go for. When I found out I was accepted into the program, I was ecstatic!

Things have really turned around for me since I became a Chicago Career Tech participant. Through CCT, I’ve received graduate-level training at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which has “woken up” the professional skills that had lain dormant during my past few jobs. At Changing Worlds, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects, including researching new database solutions, and evaluating them according to cost, customization and ease of use. From 14 possibilities, I narrowed the field to four and presented my findings to the executive team. I have also assisted the organization in replacing their current peer-to-peer software used for event registration at fundraising events like their annual 5K Walk for Cultural Awareness.

I truly believe that my experience with Chicago Career Tech has been part of God’s divine intervention in my life. All of the IIT instructors and CCT staff have been wonderful, and from my first day at Changing Worlds, I was treated like a part of the team. With my program coming to a close, I’ve started putting my resume out there and applying for positions. In April, I will take — and have no doubt I will pass — the Certified Associate in Project Management exam. I’m confident that the experience I’ve gained through CCT will serve me well as I continue to advance my career.

If your organization would like to participate as a host site in the Chicago Career Tech program, please click here for further information. If you would like to apply to be a Chicago Career Tech participant, please click here.

The job market, like the economy, is slowly improving but many Chicagoans are still out of work. One not-for-profit organization, Chicago Career Tech, is retraining middle income earners (those who made less than $90K) for new careers in health care and technology. Marie Lynch, President of Chicago Career Tech, explains the program—which is free—who’s eligible, and the application process.

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By Corilyn Shropshire, Chicago Tribune reporter

After 26 years in the workplace, Linda Stanford had risen to customer service manager at the American Bar Association. With a house in the northwest suburbs, a steady income and her only child off to college, her worries, she said, were few. Then she was laid off.

Eventually, Stanford, 58, found a new job — an entry-level position in information technology that pays less than half what she made before. Her manager is barely 30.

It has been a learning experience, she said, shrugging with a little chuckle. “It’s like starting over, a new beginning.”

Although the economy is tough all around, it has been particularly harsh to baby boomers.

There are the decimated stock portfolios and retirement accounts. And when job loss comes after decades of hard work and loyalty, it can feel unexpected, even in hard times.

Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show the unemployment rate in January for workers 55 and older was 5.9 percent, compared with 7.4 percent for workers 25 to 54. Although seniority and experience mean workers 50 and older are less likely than their younger counterparts to be laid off, experts say, once they are, it’s much tougher for them to get back into the workforce.

In January, unemployed workers 55 and older were out of work for an average of 56.1 weeks, compared with about 35 weeks for workers younger than 55, according to data compiled by the Washington-based AARP Public Policy Institute.

Many workers 50 and older have had to retool their skills and take substantial pay cuts to get back to work. In some cases, just when they were at the top of their careers and earning potential, they were forced to find new jobs. And those who lost jobs early in the recession, before layoffs became more common, often felt completely blindsided.

Yet starting a new career — or “recareering” — is becoming increasingly common as baby boomers age.

Some, like Stanford, take internships to get hired in a new field. Once she got her foot in the door as a technology assistant at Chicago-based Accretive Health Inc., she decided to convince her supervisor at the time that she was indispensable. She always arrived at work a half-hour early and volunteered to work weekends.

“The guy I was working with really saw something in me,” Stanford said. “I’m a person who likes to take charge.”

At the end of the three-month internship, he offered her a full-time job.

Laid-off workers ages 50 and older are about one-third less likely to get hired than younger job-seekers, according to a study by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

For those who beat the odds, there is often a new set of challenges at the new job: a learning curve, a younger boss, a downsized lifestyle.

People of all ages returning to work after being laid off often are making less, but for workers 50 and older, the pay cut is much steeper. Those ages 50 to 61, on average, are making nearly 40 percent less than they were before they lost their jobs, according to the Urban Institute.

And as they age, their earning potential in a new job declines. For those 62 and older, income is about 46 percent lower than it was in their previous job, according to the Urban Institute.

When Joaquin Barry lost his six-figure job as a corporate recruiter three years ago, his plans to retire at 51 were “harpooned,” he said.

Suddenly, he found himself on the other side of the desk.

Barry went from the one doing the scrutinizing on job interviews to the one being scrutinized. The people conducting his job interviews were often younger than he was. His jokes were met with blank stares. His beard showed some gray — so he shaved it off. At one point he was paying two mortgages — his mother’s and his own. He almost lost his house.

Last year, Barry, now 52, landed a job managing concessions and events for Chicago State University, earning less than half what he made before.

With his new job, there are no more luxuries, such as the cable television, multiple vacations and Wisconsin cottage weekends he enjoyed when he worked at global accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP. After unemployment wiped out his savings, Barry said he is afraid to spend his substantially decreased paycheck.

“The humbling thing is, there are a lot of guys who were here when I was a student 30 years ago who are getting ready to retire,” Barry said.

He also found the switch from the fast-paced corporate world to the laid-back rhythm of an academic institution a bit shocking.

He went from managing a team of professionals to managing a team of student employees mostly in their 20s. The generational differences are stark.

“They tell me, when they are my age, they will be rich, and I think, you’re in your 20s already, you’re going to be rich doing what?” Barry said.

Going from middle management to being out of work to starting from scratch on an entirely different career track is rattling for older workers, said Marie Trzupek Lynch, president of Chicago Career Tech, a nonprofit that retrains displaced workers. It offers job retraining programs and “train-to-hire” opportunities for unemployed adults trying to beef up their skills to match what is in demand.

The bulk of her clients, Lynch said, are in their 50s.

With so many years of experience and acquired expertise, “It’s a little bit more difficult … to think about retraining when you’re nearing your retirement age,” she said.

Of course, 50s aren’t always retirement age anymore. Later retirements are sure to continue as people realize they haven’t saved enough to stop working, according to Sara Rix, senior strategic policy adviser at the AARP Public Policy Institute.

Remaining in the workforce has advantages for older workers who are healthy, living longer and have good jobs, Rix said.

It also provides more time to save for retirement and higher Social Security benefits.

“Recareering” can encourage people to stay in the workforce longer, according to Rix. “They are learning something new, and they may be motivated in a way they haven’t been. They may be energized and more effective in the new occupation.”

And not only will they be working longer, but they might want to — or will have to — change careers. The key is to have a game plan, labor market watchers say.

Even after the economy recovers, job loss among older workers will continue, according to Richard Johnson, senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

“If your plan is to work until you are 67, that’s a good plan,” he said. “If your plan is to work until you’re much older, try to have a backup.”

Stanford, who lost her job in 2008, didn’t have a back-up plan and found the adjustment from middle management to an entry-level job unnerving.

“It took a lot of talking to myself, saying, ‘It’s not really that bad,’ because there are so many people who don’t have a job,” she said.

Now, she said, she is happy in her new field, even though she would not have considered technology as a career path had she not been forced to pursue it. “Everyone likes to be comfortable; no one really likes change,” she said.

After its success with hiring Stanford, Accretive Health has since hired more than 75 “train-to-hire” interns from Chicago Career Tech. One of them was Vicky Brown, 57.

She believed the technical skills she had picked up during her 30-year career at AT&T would make her marketable to recruiters. But more than a year of job searching passed, with no bites.

To find work, Brown knew she would have to update not only her resume, but her skill set.

“Back in the day, (employers) nurtured your talents, and now it’s ‘hit the ground running,’” said Brown, who enrolled at Chicago Career Tech to learn how to become a medical biller.

But it wasn’t easy to put herself back in the role of a student after years as a supervisor.

“You say with your mouth, ‘I can do this,’ but deep down inside, you think, ‘Can I really do it?’” said Brown, who was hired by Accretive Health last year after finishing the six-month program.

Once older workers land the job, the challenge is staying motivated and confident that they are bringing value, Lynch said.

Older workers “just want an opportunity to be able to prove themselves,” she said. “When they get in there, they are able to show the transferability of their skill sets.”

On the other hand, Steve Alspach, 52, has been fortunate — and savvy. With each layoff — and there have been two — he has found a new job that pays more.

The first time he was laid off, from an analytics firm, he spent two weeks in his home office teaching himself a computer programming language he figured would help him find a new job. He was right — a working knowledge of the language helped him land his next job. It came in handy one more time, when he was laid off again about a year later.

To hiring managers, it was “an indication that I wanted to learn something new, that I didn’t want to just sit around and watch those courtroom dramas,” he said.

Indeed, it is important for all workers to stay current, said Rix, because baby boomers won’t be the only ones recareering. She advises updating computer skills, taking advantage of training offered on the job and keeping on top of new ways of communicating.

In short, it’s “looking around and seeing what you have to do to remain employable — and then doing it.”

“Workers of all ages need to recognize that they are not in any occupation forever,” she said. “It’s not one career, it’s many careers.”

Read at Chicago Tribune