Three More Orientations - Find Out About & Apply to be an LA Fellow

We are very proud to have been invited back to conduct an information session for Cohort 12 of the LA Fellows at the JVS WorkSource location at the beautiful West Hollywood Library on June 26th at 10:30am. We have also added another on-campus orientation on July 10th at Los Angeles Valley College, home of the LA Fellows program, where we'll be answering questions and explaining the program to all interested job seekers and others. Go to www.lafellows.org/apply for all the details.

Job Seeker's Handbook: Don't Advertise What You're Not Selling

Education, family, the workplace, the Internet - there's a lot of information out there about how to be a good employee, but did anyone ever teach you how to be unemployed? This is another installment of an ongoing series of advice from people who have been there.

A resume when done properly is a marketing document, a story written to show a potential employer the triumphs and outstanding career feats that have brought you to the logical conclusion that the job you're applying for is the obvious next step for you and the solution to that company's problems.

Employers don't like to sift through the entirety of a person's years of experience trying to figure out how they might be a fit for their company. If you don't spell out clearly what you can - and want to! - do for them, they will pass you by.

Tip #2

Don't advertise what you're not selling.

Just because you do something well, and have been successful with it in the past, doesn't mean that you should highlight it in your resume. For example, if you worked in a call center but disliked the one-on-one customer service aspect, don't play up the customer compliment awards you received but do highlight how you streamlined a computer process or were lauded for the accuracy of your documentation. If you want to be seen for your managerial skills, don't talk about how the office counted on you to make coffee and fill the copier with paper, detail how you took on a project or organized a meeting. If your background is in show biz, but you want to make a change to a more office-oriented environment, think about how you can highlight the skills you gained in the context of the business world, and leave out the industry jargon.

If you're not sure whether your resume aligns with the types of jobs you aspire to, have someone who doesn't know you look at the resume and tell you what type of job they think you'd be applying for. You might be surprised to learn what pitch your marketing document is making.

1000 Words: Confidence is Key

It can be hard to describe to people what the LA Fellows experience is before they've lived it firsthand. Knowing that a picture is worth 1,000 words, here are a few to help you visualize what it's like to be an LA Fellow.

The LA Fellows are encouraged to step outside their comfort zone and try new things, whether it's social media, taking on a leadership role, public speaking, networking, or starting from scratch on their resume and rewriting it in a way they never considered. The basis for this is the idea that if what they had been doing up to this point was working, they would not be encountering the roadblocks that they find in their current job search. LA Fellows' instructors pull together the best practices available to job seekers right now, and give them a supportive space to test them out. 

Learn more about the LA Fellows program at www.lafellows.org. 

1000 Words: Fellowship

It can be hard to describe to people what the LA Fellows experience is before they've lived it firsthand. Knowing that a picture is worth 1,000 words, here are a few words to try to explain.

A group of professionals, all strangers to each other, come together for nine weeks of training. They come from diverse fields: entertainment, finance, information technology, education, law, customer service, transportation, hospitality, publishing. They come from all over the Los Angeles area, from different ethnicities, ages, education backgrounds. They seem to have little in common except for the circumstance of being unemployed. And yet...

Once the training begins, the Fellows find connections deeper than "what do you do for a living?" They find that they are all giving people who are willing to commit 100 hours to a nonprofit organization. They are committed to a cause, namely finding a job, and willing to do what it takes to complete that important mission. They are curious. They are open to new ideas, to learning how to do their job search better, and live better in the process. They are ultimately resilient. The discovery of their similarities bonds the Fellows. They find that in sharing what they know, diversity of experience is a unique advantage of this program.

The LA Fellows program works hard to nurture a supportive environment where participants can work on finding and removing the things that are getting in the way of finding that next job. Sometimes there are tears, sometimes there are difficult conversations, but there are also tissues, hugs and lots of "AHA moment" insight dispensed. Camaraderie is built and friendships are formed. Networking is about relationships and LA Fellows forge relationships that make them stronger individually and collectively.

Learn more about the LA Fellows program at www.lafellows.org. 

Job Seeker's Handbook: Don't Wait!

Education, family, the workplace, the Internet - there's a lot of information out there about how to be a good employee, but did anyone ever teach you how to be unemployed? This is the first installment of an ongoing series of advice from people who have been there.

When a job comes to an end, it can be easy to find yourself stunned and dazed. Looking at a buyout offer, a severance check or an unemployment award letter can take the pressure off, giving you a chance to breathe and a few months before paying the bills will be a problem. Some people use it as an opportunity to take time off.

Tip #1: Don't wait. 

Yes, by all means, take a short breather if you need to, a week or two, think about what your next step might be, and work through the emotions associated with whatever happened to bring your career to a temporary halt. But be careful of taking too long, and extending that time beyond what you should.

Why?

• It will take time to land another job. Employers, mindful of the cost of a poor hiring decision, are taking longer to make decisions than they have historically. There are often multiple rounds of interviews, tests and even assignments. In the same time that you spent interviewing with 5 or 6 companies in the past, you may be lucky to interview with 1 or 2. 
• You risk creating a gap on your resume that gets more difficult to explain as it expands. Job interviews can be nerve-wracking under the best of circumstances - why make it harder?
• Employers want workers who have their head in the game and are ready to jump in with both feet. If you're in the groove of scheduling meetings (interviews), getting reports (resumes) out on time, drumming up business (job leads) and treating the hours of 9-to-5 like business hours, you're more likely to present yourself as someone who can make a smooth transition than someone who's gotten used to sleeping late and watching TV until noon.
• In our culture we tend to define ourselves by our jobs, so the further we get away from doing that activity on a regular basis, the less confident we feel and act. Put yourself in the employer's shoes: would you want to hire someone who's unsure of themselves, or someone who presents confidence that they can get the job done? The more connected you are with the memory of yourself as a working professional, the easier it will be to sell yourself as one.
• The longer you wait to ask friends and family for help, the harder it is. Yes, pride will be a factor. How many job seekers have heard that awful line, "You still haven't found a job?" or some form of it! Your network will also need time to understand what you're looking for (yes, not everyone understands what you do, even when it seems like it should be perfectly obvious), and to get feedback from their network.
• If you're tapping in to government resources, like unemployment payments or state-sponsored training, that takes time too. You may run into unexpected delays due to paperwork that's required, or you may miss the start of classes by putting off investigating your options, for example. Contact your local EDD or WorkSource center as soon as you know you're looking for a job (even if you're still employed) so that you will know what's available to you and what's required.

Instructors in the LA Fellows program will assign "action steps" to help the participants keep momentum. In our experience, the LA Fellows who land fastest are the ones who jump on the job search the fastest, try everything they know to do, are open to learning. Getting employed takes time. Start now, treat your job search like a job, and be prepared to put in a full week of search related tasks and activities every week. And don't wait.

1000 Words: What Is the Drumming Thing All About?

It can be hard to describe to people what the LA Fellows experience is before they've lived it firsthand. Knowing that a picture is worth 1,000 words, here are a few to help you visualize what it's like to be an LA Fellow.

Regular readers of our blog and Twitter account may have noticed all the pictures of people sitting in a circle beating on drums, and wondered, "What does that have to do with helping people to get re-employed?" LA Fellows is an intensive program involving classroom training and 100 hours of real-world project-based volunteerism designed to enhance the job search by kicking it to the next level. It does not put the job search on hold; LA Fellows continue looking for that next job using the skills and experience they get from the training. The drum circle we do each cohort is not just a chance to let loose and have fun, it is an exercise that incorporates many of the concepts touched on in the classroom and presents them in a hands-on way that leads to new insights and confidence.

Participants gain greater insight on:

• leadership
• integrating in and contributing to an established structure
• conflict resolution
• creativity
• effective listening and communication

The Job Training Office at Los Angeles Valley College, and the LA Fellows program, has been lucky to have musician Roberto Gutierrez on staff to lead the circle for all 11 Cohorts. The drum circle is cited by many Fellows as one of the most memorable days of the training.

Learn more about the LA Fellows program at www.lafellows.org.

1000 Words: Questions and Answers

It can be hard to describe to people what the LA Fellows experience is before they've lived it firsthand. Knowing that a picture is worth 1,000 words, here are a few words to try to explain.

It's challenging being a job seeker and having questions that no one can seem to answer, or getting different answers depending on who you ask. The cohort experience gives Fellows a chance to ask questions in a safe, non-judgmental environment where they can learn from both the instructors and the other people in the class.

Learn more about the LA Fellows program at www.lafellows.org.