After a long break, I’m back.  I’ve had some temporary short term contract work which has kept me busy for a while.

I’m writing this to let everyone know that I’ve added a new feature to the site, a networking calendar that can be found by clicking the networking calendar tab at the top of the page, or for those of you subscribed to my feed, by clicking this link: Networking Calendar.  It gets updated from a personal calendar I have online, and will be updated pretty regularly as I move forward.

During my job search I have been to many different types of networking events from a one on one get together, to business mixers, to faith based support groups, to what is called a SST or Self Support Team. The list goes on.

I found out about the SST through Southwest Job Network, it’s an idea of a small group of 6-8 people meeting to discuss employment trends in different jobs and functional areas, specific job opportunities, share successes, ask advice, and get feedback on various areas of the job search process and networking.

I plan on posting events I will attend, or have attended and been to in the past that are repeating events, and will make a note of it in the calendar entry if it is an event I will actually be attending or if it is just one I’ve been to before that I found helpful in my job search.  There are some events on there now, and I will be adding more in the near future.

If you have been to an event I’ve listed, please e-mail me or comment on my blog about it, and let me know your thoughts, what has worked for you, what hasn’t, what you liked or disliked about a particulr event, and if there is an event you would like to have listed, let me know and I will post it for you.

Happy Reading!

They have been renamed Southwest Job Network to better position themselves and be recognized as the premier valley wide resource for those in the community who are  in a job search or career transition or for anyone considering a change in careers during these challenging economic times.

During the month of June they have held events in other parts of the valley, on the west side of the valley in Glendale for their kickoff event at co-sponsor Glendale Community College a workshop entitled “Get Wired to Get Hired”  held on 6/4/09.

They also held an event at Chandler-Gilbert Community College on 6/11/09 for the start of their six part job search curriculum, with part one titled, “Understanding the Emotions of a Career Change”.

I attended both of these events as a supporter for SJN and one of the things I remember Eric Walton saying in his presentation at the Chandler event was something like “We are not a job service, and won’t get you a job, but will teach you to fish.”  That is a big part of what I like about SJN, and why I will continue to volunteer my time after I’ve landed my next position. People helping people, is what it’s all about.

SJN is staffed entirely by volunteers, from the founder Chris Vicari, and the other board members, to greeters at events who take new registrations and answer questions, to people who speak at the events, to those behind the scenes providing support in a variety of way including monitoring and approving messages on the Yahoo group, uploading and updating files, responding to information requests, to people who run for refreshments for the meetings, people who review resumes at some events, and people who handle the setup and take-down of audio-visual equipment at meetings, and those that provide technical assistance when needed.

Volunteering for SJN has been a blessing for me, I’ve met many amazing people through this organization.  I started this blog after several conversations with people at SJN including Bill Austin, who answered my questions about blogging, and many other members who I am able to bounce ideas off of to get feedback.

There are many exciting things coming up for SJN, and volunteering and getting involved is one way I know to expand your network, get out and be involved.

Losing a job has many emotional sides to it, and having only moved here a year and a half ago for a job, and only knowing a handful of people which were mainly the people I worked with, SJN and people I’ve met through this organization are there for moral and emotional support, and have been part of my support structure as I move forward in my job search.

As I last posted, I was given the opportunity to speak briefly at a blogging workshop hosted by SJN and was asked to give a job-seekers view on blogging, and how it’s another tool to use in and during your job search.  I likely would not have had that opportunity had I not been involved with and volunteering for SJN at that time.  An article ran in the Arizona Republic a short time after that event and can be found here: Baby Boomers turn to blogs to find jobs

Currently the website for SJN is at Scottsdalejobnet.com but will be transitioning to Southwestjobnet.com soon.

Happy Monday and Happy Reading!

For anyone local to the Phoenix Arizona metro area that is currently in transition it is a group I highly recommend connecting with and attending the bi-monthly meetings.

I simply searched meetup.com for “Networking” and found several local groups including BNI chapters, ASBA Arizona Small Business Association, and a few other groups.

When I looked at the calendar for the group posting the meetings for Scottsdale Job Network there was an event entitled “Creating Your Vision and Personal Marketing Plan” which caught my attention.  I started attending the bi-monthly meetings for Scottsdale Job Network.

I had made the acquaintance of Chris Vicari who is the founder and executive director of Scottsdale Job Network from an initial email to find out more about the group.

Some of the things that Scottsdale Job Network offers those in transition are:

1. personal connections
2. moral support
3. job transition training through various events and a job search curriculum
4. networking opportunities
   
5. resume reviews at meetings
6. access to online resources to assist those in job transition
   

Over the next couple of months I continued to attend the meetings and expand my network, finding out about other network meetings through out the valley from others who were in attendance. I continued to make personal connections, and with the technical advice of Bill Austin who is also a supporter of Scottsdale Job Network, I began this blog.

I had come to realize that I have a passion to help the people I was connecting with, and started volunteering for Scottsdale Job Network in a capacity related to my IT experience, Chris Vicari had asked me to monitor the LinkedIn group, and re-post information about jobs posted there to the Yahoo group they also have, which members join after attending a meeting and registering.

There is a variety of other resources available on the Scottsdale Job Network website as well some of which include:

1. Events Calendar
   
2. About Scottsdale Job Network
3. Frequently Asked Questions
   

I continued to build my network, and began attending other network meetings in the valley that I found out about through other members of Scottsdale Job Network.

In February I decided that I wanted to do more for the group so I approached Chris Vicari and asked her how I could help, she introduced me to Michael Prahl, a board member of Scottsdale Job Network, who was forming an ambassador program. I felt it was a great fit for me for many reasons, one of them being my passion and desire to help others.

The ambassador program has since begun, and I am attending local networking events representing Scottsdale Job Network, helping get the word out to the community, and letting people know of the resources available for those in transition through this great group of volunteers.

I will continue to volunteer and give back to this group once I’ve landed my next position as I want to continue to help others in finding their next great career opportunity.

Happy reading!

-Martin

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

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

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

I got back a question from a contact on one of the lists:

With some 14,000 people attending the recent Jobing.com fair, should we even consider these fairs worth our time?

My response in part is below:

I went to the Jobing.com career fair the other day, arrived later than I had originally planned, but still got in front of employers, and got my resume in their hands, and what happens next, is anyone’s guess, but I did what I felt needed to be done in order that I may secure a job in the near future.

To put the answer to the question you posed “With some 14,000 people attending the recent Jobing.com fair, should we even consider these fairs worth our time?” The simple answer, for me, I say is YES, it is worth it, even if you never get in front of an employer (but hopefully that won’t happen), you are out there to network not only with the employers, but those around you also seeking jobs, and you never know if a recruiter or business owner might be one of the people you strike up a conversation and talk to ‘out in the open.’

It may sound counter-productive, but you never know where that next opportunity will come from, if it’s from a job seeker who’s got a friend or relative working at a target company or company in the same industry you’re looking in, all the better. I carry a business card holder with me with about 15-20 of my nework cards at ALL times, you never know when that opportunity will be there to network with someone.

Also, something I heard in the Connections meeting Wednesday evening … that got a laugh out of just about everyone in the room, and I can’t remember who said it, but they were at the job fair too and said ‘if you apply online at a company that was at the job fair, tell them you were at the job fair and talked to someone there, and they would ‘never know the difference’. That last part is what got the laugh, but it’s also mostly true.

Even though these folks behind the booths at the job fair didn’t have personal business cards for the most part (or if they did, they were not sharing), I would ask their name and write it down, and what company they were with if they were willing to share that information, one of the gals I talked to at one of the health care booths even offered me her work email address to follow up with her later.

As I was leaving the job fair with my portfolio in hand, I met one last person walking out with me who actually asked, “Are you a recruiter?” and I told her that no, I wasn’t,  and I asked her what prompted her to ask me that and she’d overheard part of a conversation I was having with someone else as I was walking out and I’d mentioned to that person about a recruiter I was currently working with to find a job … We talked briefly about our experience inside, I handed her my network card, and asked her to follow up with me later.

…I could be an advocate for any number of groups or causes, I happen to have strong feelings for both SJN and the St Pats employment ministry, each doing good in their own way on their own merits, and I’ve learned so much in such a short time about the importance of building face to face relationships and being professional about it…

My main point being, is get out in front of people, even if you think it’s a bit inconvenient, crowded, or whatever, make the time to connect. I networked with those around me at the job fair, and handed them my ‘network’ card, and asked them to follow up with me later.  How many of those people that will actually contact me, I have no clue. Only one other person I spoke to had a business card, and someone handed me a copy of their resume that had their contact information on it as it was the only thing they had.

…because I’ve really started to learn the value of networking, and it’s not just ‘collecting business cards’ or ‘connections’ on sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, or followers on twitter, but building real face to face relationships that will connect you with that ‘next great career opportunity’…

I have to admit that I’m a bit in awe of what face to face networking and social media has done for me, and the exposure it’s gotten me in just the last few days.

I asked Chris Vicari at the last SJN meeting “how can I help this group? I want to volunteer.” She referred me to another board member, Michael Prahl, who is in charge of forming an ambassador program for SJN, and we’ve discussed a few things, I will follow up with him next week. I’m no longer afraid of picking up the phone, or asking to meet someone for lunch, a drink, coffee or whatever, and saying ‘this is what I need, how can you help me?” or “this is what I have to offer, how can I help you?”

I even emailed a reporter for ABC 15 on Thursday morning asking to use a piece of his article on the job fair in my blog, he allowed me to link to the story and pictures, and I plan on following up with him once I post the information to my blog.

I was sent a private message by another prominent blog poster saying “thanks for the kind words.” I made some comments about networking and the tips they had on their blog, when we were chatting back and forth on Twitter, I went to their blog and posted my ‘tip’ about networking because they requested new tips and I didn’t see a guest commentary about networking, I don’t know if it will appear on their blog, but I did give that as my ‘big tip’

Also on Thursday after I sent out a message to about half of my network contacts on LinkedIn asking them politely to join a group on LinkedIn that I felt was going someplace and important to me, I got a reply back from the CEO of a company that I’d met at networking events the last two months, that he was ‘serious about working with me.’ He initially was looking for some free PR for his own business through various avenues of social media by my messages, (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn to be specific), but through a short dialog with him, I ended it with saying, “we need to meet and talk about how we can help eachother.”

I contacted a co-owner of another company who reviews job blogs, who said to me, “you should talk to ‘so and so’ at this ‘other company’, and here’s my idea on how to approach him…” … He’s already been reading my blog and said I was off to a good start and said if I needed anything to just ask.

I hope my long answer gives you enough insight on why I say “Yes” to your question “is it worth the time?”

Regards,

Martin

——————————————————————

I’m meeting with someone this morning in about an hour that I met through a connection and we are going to go over my resume and ‘spruce it up a bit.’  I’m looking forward to that, and he is meeting with a new client right after we meet, so my information will be fresh on his mind, and he will be thinking of a way I may be able to help this other company based on my experience.

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

Me being the techy that I am and taking him up on the challenge, I dug in and banged at the site for a bit, doing test job posts, clicking on things and seeing if I could really ‘break it’.

One thing I noticed right off the bat, that appeared like a thorn in my side from an aesthetics standpoint and which would have been a very simple and easy code change to fix was the title window for the site showed ‘this is the homepage title‘ (and I wish I had a screen shot of it now!).

I sent a message to Mike saying basically, “It’s broke.” He sent one back saying, “thanks for breaking it.” So during that first 20 or so minutes ‘tweeting’ back and forth on twitter.com over the issues on jobshouts.com, our relationship had been born.

After about an hour going back and forth that first night, I got one of the nicest compliments I’d gotten from anyone in a long time, Mike said “Ohh and thanks for all the help, I got more out of you than any other beta tester I have used in recent memory.”

Mike has a nice little writeup about how jobshouts.com came to be  posted here and I recommend reading his story.

After the initial release to Beta, Mike asked for others to join in on using the site, so I started telling people about it both online and offline.  I continued to watch the site, check things out and on occasion I’d notice something wrong, if a tweet from @jobshouts didn’t look right, or when I went to the site and noticed something odd. I would tell Mike about it. I also made a suggestion that the tweet from @jobshouts should include city and/or state  as it would let people following @jobshouts on twitter focus on or filter by that to find jobs posted local to them, and that has since been implimented.

I sent messages to two other job related organizations in my local area,  the Scottsdale Job Network, and St Patricks Employment Ministry, and when my messages were posted to their respective yahoo groups, I got responses from some people including a recruiter asking me questions, which I’d then in turn ask Mike, as one of the recruiters asked me “Are these just for local jobs?” The reply I got back through Robin one morning was in essence, “it’s global.” and that was and is their vision on this project.

I really like his tenacity and his passion in how he’s worked on this and wanting to keep it completely free for both job posters, and job seekers.

That same day that Robin told me it was Global,  there was one instance where Mike asked me to test the apply for job functionality and I found a problem that in my eyes would be a setback for some job seekers when trying to apply for a job, I use ‘filtered’ email addresses on gmail, so when I tried to use an email address like “myemailaddress+jobsearch@gmail.com” it gave an error but didn’t really tell me where the error was exactly.

I had to figure it out hmmm.. checked the file format for the resume I was sending (and I sent my real resume, not a dummy file), that was ok, checked other things on the apply for page, and they were ok too, so last thing I checked was the email address and thought ‘lets drop the +jobsearch from the email address and see what happens’, and it went through.

Since this was a problem that I couldn’t exactly spell out very easily in 140 characters on twitter and since he was asking me to test it right then, I figured there was a time sensitive issue, so I send him a message on Twitter saying something like ‘call me, got an issue with the apply function.’ and left my phone number. About two minutes later he called, we discussed, and he said it would be something corrected in a later release. It was the first time we’d talked on the phone since we met on twitter about a week earlier.

The power of the search engine on twitter was used to find a lot of the links, so kudos to twitter.com for that, and in that regard a disussion I’d seen floating around the net on various blogs with this being one example:

Does Real-Time Search Make Twitter a Google Killer? Its Fanbots Think So (BoomTown Not Quite Yet).

By the way, along with another site JobAngels, the jobshouts.com site and both Mike and Robin were mentioned in the LA Times today - ‘With JobAngels and JobShouts, Twitter helps jobless find work’ By David Sarno

As you read this post, please click on the links, they are very relevant to the story and a timeline of how I came to know this great guy named Mike Quale, and Robin and their venture together with their site jobshouts.com.

Happy reading! Martin