Country Club Helps Members Find Work : Unemployment: Drop in revenues forced resort to offer a job-hunting seminar and networking time. The wide-ranging recession is blamed.

Carved out of lush forest land and snuggled next to the meandering Chattahoochee River, the community called Horseshoe Bend bespeaks the great life, with its half-million-dollar homes, sparkling lakes and a country club par excellence.

Lately, however, the recession has intruded on this players’ paradise, and the club has added another activity to go along with the golfing, tennis, swimming and fine dining: job hunting.

Noticing that more and more of the club’s almost 800 members were losing their jobs and that some were “downgrading their memberships,” George Oestreich, general manager of the club, turned to Drake Beam Morin Inc., the career-management company. Recently, the firm held a two-day seminar at the club, helping out-of-work club members sharpen their resumes and their job-hunting skills.

And, since that session, a small group of club members, some of whom earned six figures in their former jobs, have continued to “network” at the club during Tuesday evening meetings.

The situation illustrates how broad the current recession is--striking managers and other professionals once believed to be “recession-proof.”

Several club members who attend the sessions said that they initially were reluctant to come, and they noted that many others in this affluent community are out of work but do not want to acknowledge it by showing up.

“I was embarrassed at first,” said Ronald Weaver, 44, who credits the sessions with helping him decide to start his own business distributing educational materials after leaving a computer training firm last January. “But, then, I said: ‘Hey, the club is providing the service. . . .’ ”

“There’s a lot of face-saving,” said Maurie Deming, a captain with Eastern Airlines until the company shut down in January. Now, after flying for 28 years, Deming is training to get a security dealers license, although he really would like to get a job as a pilot.

However, he, like others in his predicament, believes that age is against him. “Not a lot of airlines are interested in looking at somebody 54 years old,” Deming said.

In any case, he was delighted to learn of the counseling, saying it helped him modify his resume and that the continuing sessions bolster his confidence as he seeks work.

The club accepts members who live outside the Horseshoe Bend development, but the majority live within the community, located 30 miles north of Atlanta. Oestreich said that a membership costs up to $19,000 and that dues range up to $189 a month ($200 a month starting in June).

Since the recession began last year, about 20 members have downgraded their memberships, Oestreich said, adding that new memberships this year numbered only 14 through April, compared to 37 at the same time last year.

The broad economic downturn “yanks my chain,” Oestreich said, adding that it “seems to be touching a whole bunch of people.”

Indeed, while unemployment among managers and professionals remains lower than that of blue-collar workers, it has risen 160,000 to 824,000 people since the recession began last July, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The big story of this recession is it’s hit different kinds of people,” said Paula Stephan, an economics professor at Georgia State University. “People who perceived themselves to be Scotchguarded against recession” because they worked in occupations that were not sensitive to economic cycles now find themselves vulnerable, she said.

John Meeker believes he should have seen his job loss coming. Recently, he and several other men gathered at the club for one of the Tuesday networking sessions, sipping coffee and chatting about successes and failures in the job-hunting wars while other (presumably employed) members happily chased golf balls into the twilight on the nearby course.

After 21 years with his company, Meeker, who was a manager of electronic fund transfers, was laid off last February.

Meeker, 46, noted the irony of meeting at a lush country club to talk about hunting for work, saying: “At first blush, you say: ‘Why would George (Oestreich) be doing this?’ Then, you say: ‘Who cares?’ Then, you realize if these guys default on their memberships,” the club loses money.

Meeker said that he “jumped” at the chance to attend the first seminar, adding: “I was surprised that a bunch of other folks didn’t take advantage of it.” He said that he believed that many of his unemployed neighbors feel that if they’re seen attending job-counseling meetings, they will be acknowledging that “they’re not as well-connected as they think they are.”

Weaver, who was unemployed from January to April, said that there is “still a stigma about not having a job, whether you left it or it left you.” The club meetings, he said, help “instill confidence” to cope. Moreover, he said, he has made several new friends.

Focusing on a job search in a setting usually devoted to elegant leisure seems incongruous on the surface, but the truth is that jobs are always on your mind if you’re without one.

“It’s hard to have fun when you’re unemployed,” said Linda Kammire, a psychologist and senior vice president at Drake Beam Morin.

Kammire said that although many people who lose high-paying jobs get “very generous severance packages and have the luxury of lots of time to find that next job . . . they say they can’t enjoy it because they feel they should be putting their energies into their job search.”

For many, she said, even when they try to have fun with their extra time, “their head’s not in it.”

Meeker knows the feeling.

“There’s no playtime when you’re looking for work,” he said. “It’s 100% job search as far as I’m concerned.”

Nevertheless, nobody around here wants to get out of the club.

Oestreich said that is “the last thing they want to do because this is where their friends are. The club is an extension of your home.”

It also is a place to chat up and impress prospective employers and others who can help in the hunt. And for some job searchers, it promises to be something more in the future.

Deming noted that if he becomes an independent businessman, “I can take a client there and write off the expenses.”