During my job search I have come into a little bit of a routine, but I do remain flexible if something does come up that is more pressing.

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

I attended a network meeting Friday afternoon that I found through a site called meetup.com and for those local to the Phoenix area, the link to the meetup group I am a member of is here: Business networking group

The hosts of the meeting are Kenneth von Hopf and Sandy Rogers I got there around 2, and while the schedule said it would be over by 4 I was actually there till almost 6 pm.

Here are a couple of pictures from the meetup, sorry if quality isn’t that great they were taken with my cell phone:

I met a couple of guys and one of the discussions I joined in on was how people don’t have a good follow through when you offer assistance or say ‘call me later’, I admit to being guilty of it myself at times but I’ve gotten better at calling or emailing back after making a contact. Michael Castillo was one of the guys who was talking about it, his business PostalMax is in the Scottsdale Airpark, and is a member of Associated Professionals Resource Organization

I had heard about APRO from a couple of other networking groups I’d been attending, and will follow up to find out more about that organization.

My story about follow through goes back to the job fair a week and a half ago.  I’d given out my ‘network’ card with my contact information on it to about 15-20 people while networking, telling them to call or email me later, and no one has followed up with me.

We also discussed social media, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  Several people including myself had their laptops with them, and one of the guys remembered me from the news story on ABC15 from Wednesday night. I shared with them how I connected with Chris Sign and ended up getting contacted a week later to do the interview.

I met a photographer by the name of Darren Stevenson, and we struck up a conversation because my niece Kayleen is a photographer herself who has started her own business. His website is at www.stevenson-photography.com.

I also met a woman by the name of Annette Griswold, who is a life coach,  we sat for a while talking, and she mentioned that she was recently laid off, and was looking for some contacts for her business, she designs and prints affirmations on t-shirts, she showed me some of her work. The  business is called Affirm-a-Tees, etc.

She relayed a story to me about the starfish, I’d never heard it before until now but it was inspirational. Also a bit funny at one point, but if you want to know the whole story you will just have to ask her about it, the story she relayed to me was more than just ‘the starfish story’ but the how and why she came into the business she is in. I asked her if she’d mind sending a picture to include on my blog here, and she did send me one as shown below:

Annette Griswold

We were both curious and so we Googled ‘starfish story’ and up it came.  I was curious so just a few minutes ago I treid to find the author, as most of the references online were unattributed, but I came up with Loren Eiseley.

A version of that story is below:

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of
walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a child, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The child was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise man. To this, the child replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But do you not realise that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

At this, the child bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, “It made a difference for that one.”

I had to chuckle a little when she finished telling the story, but I was also thinking about the organizations I’d been involved with recently, including JobAngels, and their idea to have each person help one other person.  SJN, the non-profit I’ve started volunteering for.  The network groups I attend that are roundtable format, where people give their ‘elevator speech’ and people in the room respond with advice/contacts and other resources they may have available to help that person, and I know one person can make a difference in the life of another in a positive and powerful way.

Happy reading!

-Martin

I was going to embed the video  of the story here, however after trying it and doing a preview without publishing, it would do a continual loop, playing without stopping, so I am posting a link to the news article instead, it has a link to the  edited video interview that aired last night: Valley blogger shares job hunting experience, helps others

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