For those of you that came to my site from that link initially, thank you But for those of you just coming across this now, it’s a link to a story and video clip of my job search and networking.

I started a dialog through email with Chris Sign last week after the Jobing.com Career Expo, because I wanted to link my blog post about my experience at the job fair to a story he wrote about it.

I sent him an email and asked him if I could use the link to pictures and the story in my blog post.  He responded, and said yes, and I told him I’d let him know when I posted the story I was writing.  I shot him a quick email after that, letting him know I’d published my blog post.

I never imagined a week later I’d get an email from him saying:

‘I would like to do a story about your blog and experiences involving the job search’

I got the email  about an hour after after he sent it as I hadn’t been checking my email often, I thought about emailing him back, and asking more information, but he did give me his cell # in the email, so instead picked up the phone and called him and I am glad I didn’t miss out on the opportunity.  Chris said they were doing a quick interview in North Scottsdale, and he would like to come over after that to interview me.

I figured I was one of many they were interviewing for this story, and it would be fun to get out there, to have a little clip or comment on the news.

He asked me a question during the interview which I’m paraphrasing here as I don’t recall his exact words, “What would you say to people who may be afraid of or unfamiliar with the technology?”, and my comment about “You can choose to embrace it and go with it.” was part of my comment that made it on the air.

There was of course things that didn’t make it to the edited version which runs a little bit longer than a minute 30 seconds, I mentioned several other important groups and sites in the unedited interview that are a part of my job search efforts:

1. Scottsdale Job Network – SJN (www.scottsdalejobnet.com)
2. St Patricks Employment Support Ministry (www.stpatrickscottsdale.org/W2/ministries/)
3. Health care network group meeting (currently no active website, but hope I can help with that soon)
4. Jobshouts  (jobshouts.com) @jobshouts on twitter
5. JobAngels (www.jobangels.org) @jobangels on twitter

There are other resources I also didn’t mention in the interview and off camera that I will be sharing as I start to write more, as well as sharing more of my experiences since the story aired.

I will be adding a page to my blog with contact information soon, so anyone wanting to contact me off the blog can do so, but please feel free to post comments to my posts.

I have also tagged names of people who are part of the above mentioned groups and will write about the people and their relationship to each group at a later time.

Look for more coming in the next few days.

Happy reading!

-Martin

Some photos from ABC15 are posted here. The entire article on the event written by Christopher Sign is posted here: Thousands circle Valley Stadium looking for work.  (linked with his permission)

To give you a little more of a background story about what’s been going on with me,   I had made a connection on Twitter back on January 30th to a guy named Greg Scott, who is co-founder of Jiibe.com, we exchanged messages, connected on LinkedIn, and continued to communicate.

I Emailed him back in response to his “how’s the job search going?” question he asked, and a day or so later he asked if he could use my email on his blog.  I agreed and said yes, but asked that he please remove references to the place I lived, and companies I spoke about to protect my privacy.  I followed up with him several days later to find out if he’d ever blogged about it, and he gave me the link, which I am sharing here:  “A personal letter about a tough job search – can you relate?” (Yes, I am the “Steve” in that blog post)

When I got to the arena a little before 4 pm the line was wrapped half way around the building and back again to the entrance. I immediately started networking with those around me, asking things like “What kind of work do you do?” and “What kind of work are you looking for?”,  “How long have you been waiting in line?” and struck up conversations with several people, one response I got a lot to the second question was, “anything, I just need to get some money coming in.”

There was a guy in line who was looking for any kind of work, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, though his most recent experience had been in construction.  People talked about the possibility of losing their homes unless they were able to procure some kind of work to pay the mortgage or rent.

While my unemployment has only been a little over 5 months there were some in the crowd who have been unemployed for almost 2 years at this time.

With unemployment rate in the state of Arizona hovering at 6.9 percent as of December, it’s no wonder the turnout for this four hour event was so huge.

Outside and almost immediately when I got there, I ran into Zach Hubbell co-founder of  pursuethepassion.com handing out the program listing the employers attending inside. We chatted briefly as I’d met him on at least two previous occasions, one being a SJN event where Zach and Brett Farmiloe gave a presentation recently, and prior to that was at the last Jobing.com career fair in October 2008 at this same location, they are great guys with a passion for what they do as well, seeking to interview people who are passionate about their careers, check out their web site for more information on who they are, and what they are doing in this on-going project. I recommended one of my friends be interviewed for their project and need to follow up with Brett about it soon. Brett also blogged about the job fair prior to it happening and that can be found here: The Great Recession

It took me about 30 to 40 minutes before I was finally down on the field level inside the stadium, and one thing I recommend for these types of job fairs, is to register online if possible, Jobing.com had a ‘quickpass’ when you register, which I printed out and took with me, so instead of having to walk through their registration on-site, I handed them my quickpass and was on the floor immediately. I had checked the program on my way down and knew which employers I wanted to get to in the short amount of time I had left.

I waited in some short lines, and some longer lines. Some of the longer ones were with health care companies, and I did wait in a line for Triwest Healthcare, the gentleman who stepped up behind me in line was clean cut, very short hair, and very personable, we started talking and I found out he was in the military, and looking for any kind of work, the lady standing in line in front of us heard part of our conversation and turned around asking, “Did I hear you say you were in the military?” to which he said yes, and she shook his hand and said, “Thank you for serving our country.” I gave my network card to both of them letting them know that I had some networking resources I wanted to share with them, and to contact me soon.

As the event was coming to a close I had been standing in line to speak to someone at the Casino Arizona booth, and once again I found myself networking with those around me, there was a gal who was laid off recently, who  had just bought a house and lost her job, the closing was coming up within a couple of weeks, and she was in desperate need of work.

There was another gentleman in line I talked with, by the name of Bhawani Baral.   I gave my card to him, and out of all the job seekers I’d talked with he is the only one to respond in kind, while he didn’t have a network or business card to hand me, he did the next best thing, he handed me a copy of his resume, which had his contact information on it.  I plan on following up with him, and blogging about his experience at a later date.

The day after the event I made the acquaintance of Alison Doyle with About.com on Twitter.com when she sent a message out about her blog and job search tips asking for input.  I told her about my networking efforts and wrote up a little something about my networking efforts to share with her. The blog she specifically mentioned can be found here:  Best Job Search Tips and it includes some very sound and good advice from other experts, and people like myself who are looking for work.

Also in my networking efforts I’d talked with Michael Prahl a few days ago prior to the job fair, who is a member of the board  at SJN, about how this form of social media (blogging) may be utlizied in the efforts of the outreach of SJN to the community at large in conjunction with face to face networking, and had I thought of the opportunity before I attended this job fair, I would have asked the board president and founder of SJN, Chris Vacari for some of their business cards to pass out along with my own.

I’ve also been attending another networking group at St Patrick’s Church in Scottsdale, which will be a topic of another blog post soon.

My next post will be a continuation of this and the feedback I’ve gotten since the event on Wednesday.

Permalink: http://martinpiraino.com/2009/02/13/career-fair-day-jobingcom-phoenix-21109

Best-Interview-Strategies.com has some great post-interview advice (especially #3):

POST-INTERVIEW STRATEGY #1: Immediately send a Thank-You Letter.

POST-INTERVIEW STRATEGY #2: Don’t be shy about making follow-up calls.

POST-INTERVIEW STRATEGY #3: Don’t worry, be happy

POST-INTERVIEW STRATEGY #4: Negotiate your salary when you are offered the job.

POST-INTERVIEW STRATEGY #5: If you got the job, go celebrate! If you didn’t, don’t despair, just start again.

Having had four interviews in January, I’ve been down to #3 a lot, skipped #4, and went to the end of #5. 

I know if I’m being considered for the positions even through recruiters, I’m one of a small group of candidates to make it to that point. I do follow up after the interview, and one of the good things about the recruiters is that I do get some feedback from them regarding my interview, so I know how to prepare best for the next one.

Hopefully this new week will turn up something great.  I did get a call yesterday from a recruiter, and do have another interview scheduled for late next week. I’m also scheduling some time for network meetings next week and don’t want to overbook myself either.