Job Hunter Success Story
It is a great pleasure to share Mansi Gandhi’s success story as a job hunter and volunteer.
I had the opportunity to work with Mansi on several occasions while she was a volunteer with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce Job Forums Administrative Assistant and Social Media guru. We worked on The Job Forum newsletter, creating flyers for events and company outreach projects.
Mansi was a real go getter she knew one way to make contacts and gain experience was to volunteer. Mansi created a profile and started to apply for volunteer positions with Red Cross, Volunteer Match, and many other sights. She was referred to The Job Forum by a work colleague.
Her first volunteer job was at African People’s Defense and Education Fund (APDEF). Mansi was part of their social media team and was responsible for content creation. After several months of volunteering at The Job Forum as a Social Media Strategist and attending The Job Forum meetings, she learned from experts the best way to find a job.
Mansi says “Working directly with Janet Beach, helped me build confidence which I never knew I had. She always supported me with learning new skills and encouraged my innovative ideas beyond my expectations. I truly admire her and have found an amazing mentor”.
Volunteering at The Job Forum helped her to build confidence, stay active and productive. It also helped her realize her true potential and build a solid foundation for the next phase of my career.
“Being part of The Job Forum team led to learning career tips, strategies, resume review and interviewing tips from our variety of marvelous volunteers from a diverse background of SF based companies is a valuable experience that you just can’t get anywhere else but from The Job Forum of San Francisco.”
Personally, Mansi wanted me to share these tips with you if your job hunting.
A few things that I learned while I was volunteering:
- When thinking of a career change, volunteering lets you explore different industries. You get to know the employees, company culture, and also gain a better understanding of the roles and jobs available.
- It helps to practice your skills and develop new ones.
- Volunteering is the best way to expand your professional network. It gives you a chance to meet new people like board members, company HR Managers and other job seekers.
- By being a dedicated and effective volunteer, you can obtain a current reference and use this reference while applying for paid jobs.
Mansi continues volunteering at The Job Forum and says, “I cannot thank the Job Forum enough for the opportunities that it gave me to expand my career”.
The Job Forum is looking for other volunteers to help with fundraising proposals, interviews with job hunters to collect information on exactly how the Job Forum helped them, event planners to help create and run special events to help more job hunters, a volunteer for marketing analytics and volunteers to help other job hunters!
Please contact Janet Beach thejobforum.org if you want to volunteer and please make a donation to support our efforts to help job hunters!
By Cindy Fassler
Ex. Recruiter & Career Coach
Job Forum volunteer
