Southern California Job Market : Even These Days, Lots of People Still Land Good Jobs : Those Who Work Full Time at Finding Work Usually Do, Despite the Downturn

And now for the good news.

Despite California’s protracted economic downturn, people continue to land good jobs. Up-the-ladder kind of stuff. Even career-advancing leaps.

“Most of my candidates are having a tough time,” acknowledges Richard Knowdell, executive director of the Career Planning & Adult Development Network, a nationwide organization of career counselors based in San Jose.

But, he adds, there are success stories out there.

Some are high profile. Jay Leno takes over the “Tonight Show” from Johnny Carson. Jill Barad is named president of Mattel, becoming one of the highest-ranking women in the corporate cosmos. Orange County businessman Milan Panic is elected Yugoslavia’s prime minister.

In the workaday world, the names aren’t as well known and the remuneration isn’t as impressive. But for those wearing out the linoleum in the unemployment office, there is hope.

Consider Dan Joyce, 28, who has flirted with unemployment twice in the last three years.

After he was laid off from a Wall Street job in early 1990, Joyce abandoned New York for Los Angeles and soon found work on the staff of the U.S. Olympics Festival. The festival was a success, but when it came to an end in July, 1991, the 60 staff members were out of a job.

“I was very, very nervous coming off that job in the middle of the recession,” he says.

Joyce filed for unemployment benefits, talked to friends, met with headhunters and watched the want ads.

“It’s a full-time job finding a full-time job,” he says. “People have to know how to look for a job. Did you have a good interview that day? Did you do your follow-up? Did you send your thank-you note? Did you make your follow-up call?”

“Contacts and networking” got Joyce on at Casey & Sayre, a public relations firm in Malibu, where he has worked as an “associate”--that firm’s equivalent of an account executive--since October. And, he adds, “a lot has to do with luck.”

“I was ecstatic because I have friends who were laid off, and I know what they’re going through,” he says. Indeed, Joyce’s fiancee has been out of work since December.

Joelle Dobrow was out job hunting for nearly a year. Now she is working for a new company in Hollywood called Industry R&D;, searching for story ideas for movies of the week.

“I’m just so happy to be working,” she says.

Landing the job meant evaluating her skills and changing direction. Dobrow, who won’t give her age, had been a stage manager and an assistant director for soap operas and sitcoms. More recently, she was assistant director for a children’s television show that shifted production to Canada, leaving her jobless.

At Industry R&D;, Dobrow has had to resurrect skills developed more than a decade ago in TV news.

“It was taking a chance and being willing to take something different, to repackage myself,” she says.

But getting there was wrenching.

“It was a horrible year,” Dobrow says. “I have been looking and looking and looking and looking and looking.”

While searching for work, Dobrow says, she kept to a regular routine, didn’t allow herself to watch television during the day, and kept a notebook detailing her calls.

“For 20 outgoing phone calls I would connect with maybe one person,” she recalls. Finally, word of mouth and persistence brought success.

“It was a matter of a phone call every few months” to the company founder, Dobrow says. “There was no strategy involved. It was circumstances, luck, coincidence and perseverance.”

These days, Phil Brown, 29, is an assistant vice president in the corporate banking group at Bank of the West, specializing in developing new business among small- and medium-size companies. But for two months, he was facing the prospect of becoming just another out-of-work banker.

Brown’s employer, Union Bank, was shrinking his department at the same time that other banks were also laying off because of restructuring or mergers.

“With the Security Pacific and Bank of America merger, there were a lot of people out in the market,” Brown says. “The fact that I was able to slide over was pretty good.”

Fortunately, Bank of the West came along.

“Unlike a lot of banks, which are downsizing and pulling away from the middle market, we’re looking to grow our market share and that is the reason that I was brought on,” Brown says.

An old contact from an earlier banking job led to the interview at Bank of the West. And Brown knows how fortunate he is to have succeeded after such a short search.

“About two months--that’s not too long in this job market,” he says.

Ismael Valle’s career shows that moving up through the ranks also happens during hard times. Valle, 43, was promoted in May to vice president and manager of KTNQ-AM, one of the most popular Spanish-language radio stations in Los Angeles.

He joined the station as a part-time salesman in 1977 and went full time in 1986, when Heftel Communications bought KTNQ and its sister station, KLVE-FM.

“They showed a lot of interest in what Spanish-language radio was all about, and a lot of interest in the community,” Valle says.

Heftel shook up the management early this year and tapped Valle to run KTNQ, in part, he believes, because of his Latino heritage.

“They decided I was the right person,” he says.

Since then, Valle has been credited with luring popular disc jockey Jaime Pina away from rival KWKW-AM and spicing up the station’s format with the popular ranchero, nortena and tropical sounds.

“The people out there definitely like the change,” which is reflected in the station’s rising Arbitron ratings, Valle says.

And he insists that luck had little to do with his promotion.

“I worked very hard for many years. When you pay your dues, sometimes you get rewarded,” Valle says. “But I want people to understand that it doesn’t come easy. You have to work hard.”

The Road to a New Career

* Assess yourself honestly. Ask others to help; try mom first.

* Picture the ideal job. Figure out where you really want to live.

* Shop around. Research is crucial. Go to industry gatherings. Talk to trade groups. Read. Make as many contacts as possible.

* Repackage yourself with a new resume. Put out the word informally that you’re looking for a job. Use your new contacts.

* Don’t quit your day job until you have a new one.

* Salt away enough money. New careers often mean starting over.