I, too, would be interested in this answer. Every company I've worked for is out of business, or cut back personnel that would have been my immediate supervisors.

I think it's more about plugging your skills and how you can contribute to the organization than references these days. Referemces should be the last thing a prospective employer requests.

If you've done any volunteer work or are active in your church or community, you may have to rely on personal, rather than professional, references.

Good luck!

It can be done. The employer is aware of the realities of the workforce, however they are basically taking on an unverifiable factor based on how good of a talker you are. So be prepared to start at a lower pay rate since they are taking a chance on you, then prove your abilities.

I would recommend LinkedIn as the leading professional networking site. (Obviously, I am a fan of networking online, but keep reading.) If you are diligent, you will establish enough of a network that you may re-connect with former colleagues who can then be references for you. I have quite a few on my LinkedIn profile with whom I worked twenty years ago.

On a related note, although Facebook is not designed as a professional networking tool, it can be used as one. Many of my former colleagues, including a certain former editor, are on Facebook. The site is for social networking primarily, but it lacks the inanity of its chief competitor, MySpace.

The more friendly level of the conversation on Facebook may help you establish a closer rapport with your direct connections, while LinkedIn's friend of friend format will be more useful for finding appropriate business connections in your extended network.

I tell my career students to network, network, network; so use all direct and electronic means.

Hello 71Herrick,

This falls directly under the umbrella of Life Transition Coaching. Would you like to get in touch with me? See my Profile page. I have four groups posted in TBD. heb@sapiencecoaching.com.

There are a number of steps to be taken to get you where you want to go. With a college degree, although you have been out of the workforce for so long, you are certainly not untrained. You are intelligent and you must have had to handle many things for your family, which brought your intelligence to bear over the last 13 years. First things first: 1)do an inventory of your skills

2)decide what you would ideally want to be doing most, on a scale of 1 to 5

3)what you would really, really need to be earning

4)In coaching you would work on your self-confidence and on personal development strategies to make sure you believe that you deserve the job (or field of work) which you finally identify and for which you will apply.

Let me know how you do with each one. It is a process and not something that happens overnight.

The current employment environment is one of the toughest I've seen in many years.

When a prospective employer contacts former employers all they can do legally ask [or answer] is confirm dates of employment and if you are eligible for re-hire. That is in most states.

Now they also have a secret code, a language of their own to help uncover any problems that might be in their backgrounds [good or bad]... and it is unfair without question, but it is, what it is. So...

What we as job seekers in this market have to be smarter, more devious, better liars and do what you have to do to get the job. It is frankly a battle of wits.

Most of us are honest and it offends us that someone would even suggest such a thing, before you get your knickers in a twist hear me out.

For down time longer that a month or two, which is the nominal time to find a new job if you are well connected, I suggest listing that time as a "independent consultant".

When I was laid off from a large company in the early 90's and the time looking for a new position when from a month or two, to a year and then a year and a half, I simply listed the time on my resume as an "independent consultant".

I have three step sons who I gave their cell phone numbers as contacts and when they received calls to a Mr. Green, Mr. Rodgers, etc., they knew the call was from an prospective employer from me. In the years of doing that only two calls were made. Naturally the time frame and money were verified and they went on their way, and I got a new job.

Please keep in mind that this extent of covering my time was for a job which paid a lot more than $12.00 an hour. So for entry level jobs, you shouldn't have to go in that direction. You have to do what it takes to get a job however.

WARNING... I do not want anyone to try this at home, but it's worked for me.