Survival Stories: Felice Gavin, administrative professional
Survival Stories: Felice Gavin, administrative professional
During her nearly six-month-long job search, Felice Gavin would come home each evening to one of three things for dinner: a Lean Cuisine meal, cheese and crackers, or nothing at all.
On a recent evening, however, she had cause to enjoy a decent meal. Gavin, who turns 64 today, had finally landed a job she really wanted at New Breed Logistics in High Point, and a Lean Cuisine dinner just wouldn’t do the occasion justice.
Two of her children and their spouses traveled from Raleigh to Greensboro to help her celebrate at Village Tavern. Instead of a frozen meal, Gavin had jumbo shrimp in a bayou cream sauce over rice, paired with a glass of Pinot Grigio.
It was a happy ending to a long unemployment process, one that started tumultuously in March, when the Securities and Exchange Commission shut down the Greensboro office of her former employer, Stanford Financial Group, an investment firm whose billionaire CEO was being investigated for securities fraud.
Gavin, an executive assistant at the company, was devastated. Everyone was conducting business as usual, she said, when “all of a sudden the computers are turned off, the phones are turned off and the stuff on your desk is (left) there.”
The hits kept coming. Employees found out in April that health coverage through COBRA would cease at the end of that month due to the company’s change in status. COBRA, a government mandate giving qualified employees the ability to continue health insurance after losing their job, normally provides coverage for up to 18 months.
“All these people were not only without jobs, but without benefits, unless they could get them through a spouse or something,” said Gavin, who is single and had to pay for health coverage out of pocket. She qualified for a catastrophic plan that cost her $315 a month and is set to expire at the end of October.
But with support, persistence and prayer, Gavin made it. Her new contract position at New Breed as administrative assistant to the vice president and director of human resources, which began Aug. 24, may transition into a permanent job in November. Health benefits would also kick in at that time thanks to a waiting period waiver.
Here’s how she survived before landing her new job:
Background
Gavin’s experience is in administrative management and executive support. In addition to Stanford Financial group, she has worked for local companies such as Lincoln Financial Group and United Way of Greater Greensboro.
Job search breakdown
Networking
• Gavin regularly attended local networking meetings. She joined several groups, including the Reemployment Support Group at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, Jobs Net at First Presbyterian Church, WestPres JobConnect at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Professionals in Transition and Triad Job Search Network (TJSN).At TJSN’s Friday “trio” meetings, a smaller and more focused breakout group, members helped each other practice their interviewing skills and provide one another with helpful feedback. Gavin and her team practiced answering dozens of the toughest questions interviewers ask candidates, and filled out a long behavioral questionnaire designed to address specific weaknesses.
She found that in these smaller groups, members also tend to share more information with one another about job openings or leads they have heard about.
• She scheduled lunch meetings to reconnect with former colleagues and friends and pick their brains about professional opportunities. “Of the interviews I’ve had, every single one of them has been from networking,” she said.
Online
There are a million job sites online, “and I use every single one of them,” Gavin said. She also got a list of local companies and their Web sites at one of her networking meetings. From that, she targeted companies that sparked her interested and regularly checked their Web sites for openings.
Other resources
Gavin visited JobLink Career Center in Greensboro to move along with the process of qualifying for federal job-training money through the Workforce Investment Act, “which has a lot of hoops you have to jump through, but once you jump through all those hoops and take their test and have the counseling, you qualify for funding — stimulus dollars to take classes,” she said.
After qualifying, she took a project management course GTCC and online computer classes to sharpen her skills.
Obstacles
• Temporary work pays, often provides health coverage after a waiting period, and some jobs can lead to full-time employment. However, Gavin found that jobs through staffing agencies were few and far between, didn’t pay enough to justify the time she would lose looking for full-time work, and were often outside Greensboro, so the cost of fuel became an issue.
• While she didn’t have too many problems landing job interviews, Gavin at first had trouble getting past that stage. Before she got the job with New Breed, she said: “A lot of (job seekers) are asking that same question: ‘Is it me?’ ... or is it just that these companies have their pick of the litter? I don’t know — it’s not clear what it is.”
Successes
• Gavin advanced to the interview stage with several employers, including High Point Regional Hospital and audit services company KPMG.
• After applying for a job at real estate management company Bell Partners in Greensboro, a former colleague of hers, who now works at Bell, passed her résumé on to New Breed. Gavin had three in-person interviews and three phone interviews before receiving an offer, which she didn’t hesitate to accept. “This felt good from the very first phone interview,” she said.
Making ends meet
To cut costs during tight times, Gavin kept it simple at her Greensboro apartment:
• She trimmed down her cable package to include just a basic connection and Internet service so she could e-mail and search for jobs.
• She turned off the air conditioning during the day while she was out looking for work and, since she lived in a middle-floor apartment, it would still be relatively comfortable when she returned in the evening. At night, she’d turn it back on so she could sleep.
• She said she didn’t spend money on anything but food, bills, rent and gas.
Temporary work:
• A contact, Bill Linton, who helps facilitate Jobs Net at First Presbyterian Church, managed to get Gavin and others a few days of work at the annual Market America convention at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, where she was paid to sell T-shirts and other marketing products for Textile Printing Inc., a Charlotte company.
• She house-sat for her sister and her husband for 12 days in California. She didn’t ask nor expect to be compensated financially, but they paid her anyway. Staying upbeat
“For the most part, I do fine because I’m really upbeat and optimistic and have a lot of faith that it’s going to turn out the way it’s supposed to,” Gavin said.
But she had her days. “And you know what it is? It’s the black hole at the end of the day,” she said. “It’s like, ‘I worked all day long and the day is over, night has come and I have to do this all again tomorrow. And nobody’s paying me for doing this, and it’s frustrating.”
To keep her spirits alive, she relied on three sources: her faith, her family and her gym, the membership to which her sister paid for.
• Her faith: After she first lost her job, “the prayers started out as, ‘Dear God, please get me a job,’” she said. “And at the end, it was kind of like, ‘Please put me on the right path and send me where you want me to go, and I’ll be open to that.’”
• Her family: She talked to her daughter on the phone every night and to her two sons about twice a week. Her mother, who lives in California, was also a source of encouragement.
• Her gym: Gavin once interviewed for a job she thought she was perfect for, but she didn’t end up getting an offer. “That was a bad day,” she said. So she went to her gym, which served as more than just a place for her to sweat out her frustration. “At the gym there are other networkers,” she said. “So I do exercise, but there’s also some socializing that goes on, and that seems to kick my endorphins and it’s like, ‘OK, I accomplished something today.’”
She has been through a divorce and has dealt with health issues in the past, but unemployment also proved to be a significant life challenge for Gavin. Significant enough for her to return to her networking groups after accepting her new job to share the good news and answer members’ questions about her journey. There were negatives and positives, of course, but Gavin prefers to remember the latter.
“It was in a sense ... like childbirth,” she said. “When it’s over, you forget all the bad parts and remember all the good parts.”
Contact Patrick Collins at 412-5934 or patrick.collins@news-record.com.
Felice Gavin 092009
Felice Gavin works at the annual Market America convention at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex in early August, a temporary position she found out about through one of the networking groups she attended each week as she searched for permanent employment.
About this feature
Survival Stories is an occasional feature that spotlights unemployed individuals navigating today’s challenging job market. Are you interested in sharing your story of survival? Contact Patrick Collins at 412-5934 or patrick.collins@news-record.com.
