I only had my cell phone with me so the lighting and quality were not the best.  He bears a striking resemblance to the real Sean Connery, and does the accent very well.  He would crack jokes with the accent, and made me laugh. I’ve got to start taking my digital camera to these events to get better pictures.

He quoted several movie lines, including one of my favorites, from “The Hunt for Red October“, as Captain Marko Ramius, “Hey, Ryan, be careful what you shoot at. Most things in here don’t react too well to bullets.” His real name is Dennis Keogh, and his website is www.denniskeogh007.com, he talked about some upcoming things he was working on, and is a very friendly, outgoing guy.

At this networking event, I did run into a few people I’d met before, but there is always someone new, and Austin knows people by name, it’s one of the things that really impresses me about him, he can walk right up to someone and say “Hi James, how are you tonight?” and get the same in return.

Of course with Austin being the tallest guy in the room, it’s hard not to miss him too.  I initially met him at another network event back in the beginning of January, hosted by Integrated Alliances, with Mike O’Neil, and Rob Gibbs of Bleedingedgetech.com, a LinkedIn Live event, where people in the valley that are connected on LinkedIn, can meet face to face, and someone said “Just look for the tallest guy here.”

This was the third time I’d attended this event since hearing about it back at the beginning of January, and it is held every Tuesday evening at Barcelona in Scottsdale.  I have made some great contacts at this event and would recommend anyone that wants to meet people in a relaxed atmosphere, to come out to this event.  You can find out more about it on Austin’s website here.

That same evening I was also introduced to Jason Bressler who is the Executive Director of the North Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce, and he sent me an email after the event, and I have some leads to follow up on in the next day or so.

The other picture was snapped sometime that night and I just turned the camera toward the bar, again not the best, but it was a very good event. I don’t know exact numbers but when I talked to Austin about an hour after I got there he said that it looked like approximately 150 people had turned out for the event at that time.  These events are huge, the audience is huge.  I enjoyed getting out and meeting people, and I myself would love to host an event sometime where there is this kind of turn-out.

For those of you who are seeking work, or other business opportunities, I recommend finding events like this to attend.  For those of you who are local to North Phoenix/Scottsdale area, if you see me at an event, come up and say hello.  I’ve mainly attended events in North Phoenix, Scottsdale and a couple in  East Valley area, but if you know of an event on the west side of town, let me know about it.

I will continue to post information about events I find that I will attend, and do have some other posts I’m working on about the Job Fair on went to Monday, and the Interview Workshop I went to Tuesday morning at SJN and will be posting those soon. I’ve had many more things come my way since stepping up my face to face networking, and I can’t stress the importance of building those relationships.

The saying is,  “build your network before you need it.”  Well, I wasn’t expecting the layoff last September, so I am building my network now.  When I am working in that next great career opportunity of mine, even if it is running my own business, I want to keep active in my networking efforts and give back, or  ‘pay it forward’ with a connection that needs my help  someday.

Happy Reading!

-Martin

Monday mornings I generally follow up with contacts and recruiters, to set up coffee or lunch meetings during the week, I  also let these contacts know of my networking schedule, so they can meet me face to face at the networking events as well.

This coming week I plan on attending a job fair hosted by National Career Fairs today from 11am-2pm, then a SJN meeting Tuesday morning, after that I’ll be meeting with a recruiter Tuesday afternoon to discuss an overnight position he’s got down in Tempe, it will be my first meeting with him.

Tuesday evening I’ll be attending a meeting of Austin J Feldman’s -  Austin’s “Who’s who” in Arizona, at Barcelona in Scottsdale. Tuesdays lately have been one of the busiest days of the week for face to face networking depending on the week.

On Wednesday evening from 7 to 9 PM, there is the St Patricks Employment Support Ministry network meeting I will be attending at St Patricks Church in Scottsdale.

I encourage anyone local reading this to come to these events, if you’re looking for work and we meet up there (or after the event) we can talk about how we can help one another, and if you want to contact me to find out more, my contact information is here.

I will be making time early in the week to speak with Jim McVeigh, who I’ve met at a couple of networking meetings in the last month or so, he’s in the marketing and PR field. I want to discuss some opportunities that have come across my plate in the last few weeks as possible business opportunities.

I will also be making some phone time early in the week to speak with Charee Klimek who is Volunteer CMO and COO for JobAngels. I met her on Twitter last week and connected with her on LinkedIn, told her about my job search, and how I stress networking as a very important part of the job search. She wanted to make some phone time to talk with me, I’ll be emailing her to find out when she can get some time to talk.

I may have what I will call ‘piece’ work during the next week as well. After I’d made some connections last week, a couple of them saw that I was blogging and were interested in starting it themselves, and wanted to talk with me about what’s necessary to get it set up on their own domain host.  I also had a couple of hardware problem requests emailed to me over the weekend from people I’d met in the last couple of weeks.

A few tips for the job search for this week:

1. Find and attend at least one or if possible two network meetings a week some resources for are listed below:
   • networkingphoenix.com (login is required to view details on the calendar which is extensive)
   • meetup.com (search for ‘networking’ and this is a national site, so you can look in your local area)
   • networkingeventfinders.com (is national so it can be searched by each state as well)
2. Bring the following with you to any network event or job fair:
   • Pens/Pencils, a small notepad, or portfolio
   • Business cards (I call it a ‘networking’ card) – things I recommend including on the card for job seekers:
     • Name
     • Phone Number
     • Email address and web site address if you have one
     • LinkedIn profile address
     • 2 or 3 items in your area of expertise or what you’re looking for
       • Don’t use old business cards from previous employers if you’re unemployed and looking for work
         1. print your own on your home computer
         2. purchase business card stock from a printing place like Kinko’s and print them on-site
         3. vistaprint.com is another resource for printing busines cards
   • A cheerful attitude
   • A firm handshake
3. Set up alerts on key words from various job boards
   • monitor and change keywords if you’re not getting the results you expect or no results at all
   • utilize your RSS reader and subscribe to feeds of your search terms if the job site has that capability
   • make sure your resume is updated on the job board, and attach a cover letter with specific information related to the job you’re applying for
4. Work your personal network
   • Talk with family/friends and let them know what’s going on
   • Make contact or reconnect with old coworkers, even if they themselves moved companies
   • Make several coffee or lunch dates
     • Have specific questions or an agenda in mind
     • make it brief, unless more time is needed,  30 minutes is fine, you can always extend as needed
   • Don’t be afraid to ask for help from those in your network, you won’t know until you ask

More tips coming up soon!

Happy reading!

-Martin