Women Take More Time With Career Options : Female managers are more apt be more cautious on their next step when they lose a job. Being a single parent can add a sense of urgency.

A 45-year-old property manager recently quit her job when her husband was transferred to Orange County. She may change her line of work but hopes to improve her $46,000 salary, wants flexible hours and has allowed six months to find a new job.

A 36-year-old single mother was unexpectedly laid off as finance manager for a bank. She has two young children and is hoping to duplicate her $37,000 salary in whatever field can use her financial expertise. She wants to be back at work within two months.

A recent study showed that high-ranking women who are out of work take two months longer to find a job, on average, than men. But it would be a mistake to think that sex bias by employers is the primary cause of that two-month gap, according to placement counselors. They say it’s a job candidate’s personal sense of urgency that most frequently determines how long he or she is out of work.

The women in the above examples are actual job-seekers who have sought the help of placement counselors at Women’s Focus in Tustin, said co-owner Sandra Young. Women managers are more apt to reassess their career direction when they lose a job, she said, and that can add 60 to 90 days to a job search.

“But if the woman is a single parent,” Young said, “you’d better believe she’s not messing around with questions of ‘Who am I?’ ”

Young added that women, if they are willing, can frequently find jobs more quickly than men can because they are often offered salaries about 20% lower than those offered their male counterparts.

The study that first showed a two-month gap between the sexes in finding work was published by Lee Hecht Harrison Inc., a New York-based outplacement company that has an office in Irvine. The study, published last summer, looked at women executives.

“We found that most women take more time evaluating their career options,” wrote Stanlee Phelps, a company vice president. “We also saw an increasing interest in entrepreneurship as an alternative to another corporate career.”

According to Phelps, women, especially those over 40, “recognize that a ‘glass ceiling’ exists for them and are often hesitant to go back into the corporate setting and accept such limitations.”

Another factor that increases the length of the job search for executive women, Phelps said, is that they are less likely to be willing to relocate: 34% of men would be willing to move anywhere in the United States for the right offer versus 11% of women.

In the year since that study was published, Phelps said, she has found that more men are taking family concerns into consideration when relocation is an option.

Also, the two-month gap has narrowed, she said, because the recession is causing enough fear among women that they are taking jobs they might not have considered before. Executive women are more willing to accept jobs at small and medium-size companies without the titles and status they once had.

Kathleen Jennings, owner of the Jennings Co., a placement firm in Irvine, said that age is a factor, more than sex, in whether a candidate gets a job. Companies can be wary of applicants over the age of 40, she noted, because after that much time in the work force, they usually demand higher salaries and more benefits.

She suggested that there is one separation based on sex: “I’m not sure women scrap as hard for jobs,” Jennings said.

Scrappiness--which Jennings defines as gathering market intelligence, persistence and better presentation skills--is especially important because jobs are hard to get in this tougher economy.

For a sales position at a Fortune 100 company, one of Jennings’ clients was interviewed three or four times along with about 35 other candidates. The field was narrowed to five people, each of whom was interviewed twice more. Jennings’ client got the job.

“I haven’t seen that kind of caution before” on the part of the employer, she said.

Placement counselors are more likely to work with women and men in executive and managerial positions. Lower-level workers have a different story to tell about sex bias, said Judy Rosener, a management professor at UC Irvine who writes about women and work. “The women I know are working because they have to work,” Rosener said. Secretaries and middle managers who are out of work are “desperate.”

Sex bias “is a very complex and subtle thing,” said Rosener, who has been speaking to companies in this country and overseas about such issues. “I don’t think any placement counselor will say to you there’s prejudice because they don’t want to believe it, and they don’t want their clients to believe it.”