When Collins Denny held the first meeting of the Virginia Career Network in November, two people showed up. Now the group has more than 1,000 members registered between Meetup.com and Linkedin.com.
The Virginia Career Network, founded by Denny, a manager at the local information technology firm Leading Edge Systems, and Deborah Gallant of Convergent Technology Group, is a support and network group for recently laid-off workers. Hosted by the group’s growing list of volunteers, the Virginia Career Network holds five to 10 meetings each week. Meetings frequently feature a guest speaker on a topic intended to give the unemployed a leg up on the job hunt.
BizSense sat down with Denny to talk about what he is observing in the local job market and his advice for jump-starting a career. Jeff Jefferson, one of the group’s volunteer meeting facilitators, joined in on the conversation. Jefferson is a résumé writer and job coach who this year started his own firm, Actum Inc.
Below is an edited transcript:
RBS: The last unemployment figure for the Richmond area was about 8 percent. Do you think the job market is getting better or worse?
Denny: I don’t think it is getting worse. There were a lot of layoffs between November and January, and I haven’t seen that many big ones that have affected the Richmond market since then. I have heard from several people in our network that they are starting to get interviews and starting to feel like there is more interest in the employment market for them. I’m starting to see more jobs.
RBS: What is the story behind the Virginia Career Network, and what is its main purpose?
Denny: I started it back in November, when Circuit City had the layoffs, and it was purely for the purpose of networking among people who had been laid off. You still need to build relationships.
RBS: So what is networking, really?
Denny: It’s the process of educating others about who you are and what it is you are looking for. But it is also about finding out who other people are and ways that you can help them. The bottom line is that networking is about helping other people because good things will come back to you.
Jefferson: Networking when you are out of a job can be looked at as a little bit desperate. You lose your job, and all of a sudden you show up to all these meetings and you are asking everybody for connections and that type of stuff. What I think VCN is trying to do is educate people that your networking should never stop. You constantly keep your network going – that way, when it comes around that you are a little shaky on your job situation, you are not immediately going out and introducing yourself to all these strangers.
Denny: What is unfortunate that I see, most of the people that come to the meeting for the first time have never networked. They don’t know the process, and they are starting from scratch, but it’s too late to start from scratch. They should have started six months before they lost their job, and things would be rolling and they would be spending less time unemployed.
RBS: How many job connections are being made through the network?
Denny: We are trying to track them, and I am encouraging people to share their success stories. I can tell you for the month of April we’ve probably seen 10 or more success stories come to us.
RBS: What is the mood like at a typical meeting?
Jefferson: In these meetings you get these folks who are all out of work but they are always upbeat and positive. I think the leadership in the groups leads it that direction. You get 25 to 30 people in a room and they have all been out of work for six-plus months – that can be a pretty down experience. [But] all the meetings I have been to and helped facilitate have been extremely positive. You can see people walking out with a little more hop in their step.
RBS: You are heavily involved with social media and having an online presence. How is this an effective tool for job seekers, and how can they be sure to use it effectively and not as a distraction?
Jefferson: I am a believer that the Twitter stuff is here to stay and people are using it more and more. I say jump on that thing and get on it and see the stuff that’s coming through. At the very least you are going to get job updates.
Denny: I agree. Somebody that is a marketing professional, for instance, should get involved with Twitter and constantly put stuff out there relating to their profession and make it known they are looking for their job. I put jobs out on Twitter that I might have within my company or that people send to me to put into the career network.
Jefferson: One of the reasons I got involved with Twitter was the guy that did my website, Tim Wood, said he was at an IT conference in Seattle and met Jeff Bezos [founder of Amazon.com]. Tim asked him what the coolest thing you had happen on Twitter. Jeff said he put a job out for a specific engineer job, he said whoever could tell me in 140 characters or less why they should get hired for this job will have a job at Amazon. Three hours later he hired a guy that was perfect for the job.
RBS: Where are you seeing growth, and what is competition like for those jobs?
Denny: It’s fierce. I know the mortgage industry – there is a boatload of jobs there. We’ve had several mortgage recruiter people join our network recently, and they are recruiting 50 or more positions at a time for different companies. There is activity going on within financial services.
RBS: What is the most common thing holding a job seeker back from getting the job they want?
Denny: Ineffective résumés, ineffective interview skills and not being realistic in regards to their compensation expectations.
Jefferson: If you learn how to network and get your résumé in front of the person who would eventually maybe you hire you, but your résumé is terrible — sorry, they are moving on. I read about a recruiter at AFLAC who said it take them four seconds to decide if a résumé goes into the “no pile” or the “maybe pile.”
The difference between someone who is getting work quickly and someone who is sitting on the market for forever is [the difference between] the job seeker and the problem solver. The job seeker is the person who is on the Internet all the time and not doing networking and stuff like that. The problem solver is a person who understands what their value is and they can clearly articulate their value and what problems they can solve at an organization.
Denny: I have heard from several job seekers who found jobs say to me that being on a job search is the hardest job they’ve ever had. You are in sales, and if you don’t know how to sell, you’ve got to figure it out. It’s a job to find a job: You better treat it like one from 9 to 5 and work hard.
When Collins Denny held the first meeting of the Virginia Career Network in November, two people showed up. Now the group has more than 1,000 members registered between Meetup.com and Linkedin.com.
The Virginia Career Network, founded by Denny, a manager at the local information technology firm Leading Edge Systems, and Deborah Gallant of Convergent Technology Group, is a support and network group for recently laid-off workers. Hosted by the group’s growing list of volunteers, the Virginia Career Network holds five to 10 meetings each week. Meetings frequently feature a guest speaker on a topic intended to give the unemployed a leg up on the job hunt.
BizSense sat down with Denny to talk about what he is observing in the local job market and his advice for jump-starting a career. Jeff Jefferson, one of the group’s volunteer meeting facilitators, joined in on the conversation. Jefferson is a résumé writer and job coach who this year started his own firm, Actum Inc.
Below is an edited transcript:
RBS: The last unemployment figure for the Richmond area was about 8 percent. Do you think the job market is getting better or worse?
Denny: I don’t think it is getting worse. There were a lot of layoffs between November and January, and I haven’t seen that many big ones that have affected the Richmond market since then. I have heard from several people in our network that they are starting to get interviews and starting to feel like there is more interest in the employment market for them. I’m starting to see more jobs.
RBS: What is the story behind the Virginia Career Network, and what is its main purpose?
Denny: I started it back in November, when Circuit City had the layoffs, and it was purely for the purpose of networking among people who had been laid off. You still need to build relationships.
RBS: So what is networking, really?
Denny: It’s the process of educating others about who you are and what it is you are looking for. But it is also about finding out who other people are and ways that you can help them. The bottom line is that networking is about helping other people because good things will come back to you.
Jefferson: Networking when you are out of a job can be looked at as a little bit desperate. You lose your job, and all of a sudden you show up to all these meetings and you are asking everybody for connections and that type of stuff. What I think VCN is trying to do is educate people that your networking should never stop. You constantly keep your network going – that way, when it comes around that you are a little shaky on your job situation, you are not immediately going out and introducing yourself to all these strangers.
Denny: What is unfortunate that I see, most of the people that come to the meeting for the first time have never networked. They don’t know the process, and they are starting from scratch, but it’s too late to start from scratch. They should have started six months before they lost their job, and things would be rolling and they would be spending less time unemployed.
RBS: How many job connections are being made through the network?
Denny: We are trying to track them, and I am encouraging people to share their success stories. I can tell you for the month of April we’ve probably seen 10 or more success stories come to us.
RBS: What is the mood like at a typical meeting?
Jefferson: In these meetings you get these folks who are all out of work but they are always upbeat and positive. I think the leadership in the groups leads it that direction. You get 25 to 30 people in a room and they have all been out of work for six-plus months – that can be a pretty down experience. [But] all the meetings I have been to and helped facilitate have been extremely positive. You can see people walking out with a little more hop in their step.
RBS: You are heavily involved with social media and having an online presence. How is this an effective tool for job seekers, and how can they be sure to use it effectively and not as a distraction?
Jefferson: I am a believer that the Twitter stuff is here to stay and people are using it more and more. I say jump on that thing and get on it and see the stuff that’s coming through. At the very least you are going to get job updates.
Denny: I agree. Somebody that is a marketing professional, for instance, should get involved with Twitter and constantly put stuff out there relating to their profession and make it known they are looking for their job. I put jobs out on Twitter that I might have within my company or that people send to me to put into the career network.
Jefferson: One of the reasons I got involved with Twitter was the guy that did my website, Tim Wood, said he was at an IT conference in Seattle and met Jeff Bezos [founder of Amazon.com]. Tim asked him what the coolest thing you had happen on Twitter. Jeff said he put a job out for a specific engineer job, he said whoever could tell me in 140 characters or less why they should get hired for this job will have a job at Amazon. Three hours later he hired a guy that was perfect for the job.
RBS: Where are you seeing growth, and what is competition like for those jobs?
Denny: It’s fierce. I know the mortgage industry – there is a boatload of jobs there. We’ve had several mortgage recruiter people join our network recently, and they are recruiting 50 or more positions at a time for different companies. There is activity going on within financial services.
RBS: What is the most common thing holding a job seeker back from getting the job they want?
Denny: Ineffective résumés, ineffective interview skills and not being realistic in regards to their compensation expectations.
Jefferson: If you learn how to network and get your résumé in front of the person who would eventually maybe you hire you, but your résumé is terrible — sorry, they are moving on. I read about a recruiter at AFLAC who said it take them four seconds to decide if a résumé goes into the “no pile” or the “maybe pile.”
The difference between someone who is getting work quickly and someone who is sitting on the market for forever is [the difference between] the job seeker and the problem solver. The job seeker is the person who is on the Internet all the time and not doing networking and stuff like that. The problem solver is a person who understands what their value is and they can clearly articulate their value and what problems they can solve at an organization.
Denny: I have heard from several job seekers who found jobs say to me that being on a job search is the hardest job they’ve ever had. You are in sales, and if you don’t know how to sell, you’ve got to figure it out. It’s a job to find a job: You better treat it like one from 9 to 5 and work hard.
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