Fitzer was interested until he read the rest of the posting: It said that only employed people need apply. "I was disappointed," he said, but there was something more than that in his voice.
The nation's payrolls seem to be expanding, but many worry that one group will be left behind - the unemployed themselves, as employers bypass them for people who already have jobs.
"I think there is a perception of shelf life," said Alayne Green, an operations manager and top executive from Elverson who, like Fitzer, was laid off in June 2009.
"Employers think that if you haven't been picked up by now, there must be something wrong with you," she said.
One in three unemployed Americans has been out of work for more than a year, according to a report by Pew Charitable Trust's Fiscal Analysis Initiative.
Many laid-off people adopt the same strategies that Green and Fitzer use to stay sharp and up to date - consulting jobs, networking in their fields, and strategic volunteering to maintain skills and contacts.
But, absent that, knowledge and confidence can erode over time, making the long-term unemployed more of a hiring risk, recruiters say.
And there is also the perception that employers used the worsening economy as an excuse to jettison their less-than-solid performers.
"Sometimes the unemployed are unemployed for a reason, and the reason is they are lousy," said Ken Dubin, president of the Dubin Group, a Bala Cynwyd recruiting agency that specializes in accounting and finance.
Dubin estimates that about one in four unemployed fall into that category.
"These assumptions don't fit the new reality," countered Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group.
"There is a reason" the unemployed have been unemployed for so long, she said. "The economy has been crappy, people have lost their jobs, and they haven't been able to find new ones."
