President Franklin D. Roosevelt eloquently pointed out, “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” Every Wednesday over Zoom, The Job Forum hosts a 90-minute workshop that is sure to empower any job seekers during these challenging times. For the last 70 years, this nonprofit service has hosted a multitude of events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sign up for free on Eventbrite to team up with expert panelists volunteering from local businesses and nonprofits and fellow job hunters in this encouraging space. During April 2023, I attended two weekly Wednesday events and am excited to share my impressions!

How did you find out about The Job Forum?
In the beginning of 2022, I left my previous job of 6 years looking to make a splash in the social media and content space. As daunting as a career transition into a new field can feel, my first interaction with The Job Forum lifted those spirits. Looking to optimize my resume, LinkedIn, and “long held” fear of networking, the recurring and free/low-cost events here caught my eye. A few professionals I crossed paths with in SF informed me there was an organization that prides themselves on tailoring custom feedback for participants. It can feel like a whirlwind jumping on the computer and “aiming to get the next job pronto.” Step into a Wednesday event prepared to talk about your work journey and receive lots of constructive criticism.

Tell us something about the event that stood out?

I found the panelists to be laser-focused in their responses to each individual job hunter. For the Wednesday event, 5-7 minutes is allotted per person in their share. Outcomes vary from how to grow your side hustle to expanding location of remote job search to uncovering a relevant Slack group. The Job Forum panelists are leaders in their respective fields and have a strong sense of delivering next best steps. As a job hunter , it’s very important to come prepared with a concise question or topic for discussion. You’ll be sure to walk away with a wealth of knowledge and strategies to manage your job search.

 

What do you think is the valuable reason to attend an event at The Job Forum?
I believe that a huge asset is the attention one receives from both panelists and fellow attendees. During the events I’ve recently attended, each volunteer panelist provides their take on a given matter while the Zoom chat fills up with commentary from the community. I find myself collecting many pertinent insights that weren’t originally in the forefront of my mind nor included in my job search tactics. This allows me to  develop a more in depth  approach to job hunting  and add more ideas each time I participate, as well as to aide other job hunters who are new to The Job Forum.
Do you plan to keep attending The Job Forum during your job search and why?

I plan on continuing to regularly attend The Job Forum events (of all kinds) during my job search because of the accountability I’ve taken away from the organization. I find that the job hunting tactics of mine are more fine-tuned with more exposure from the individually crafted advice. The direction of each event takes its own course and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the helpful content shared to me in the social media space. As I’ve mentioned earlier, taking on the entire scope of finding a job alone can feel very overwhelming. Make your next job search a little less complicated by collaborating with us.

by Jason Slamovich

This is a real success story about Ismail Bugdayli. But first, Ismail wants you to know he made lots of effort and plenty of mistakes in his job search. He wants other job hunters to Not make his mistakes.

 

Now that he has a great new job and is taking the great next step in his career, he can laugh when he shares that he applied for about 500 jobs in 1.5 years. He didn’t do any networking, and simply kept applying again and again for job openings. He learned that his job search method did not work very well. He explains he had only around 25 interviews, so he points out that is only a 5% return on his efforts.

 

Now he says he loves his new career as a Sales Executive at Eurofins E&E North America. This is a fascinating company. They are a global leader in product safety testing and inspection for pharmaceuticals, food, environment, MedTech and electrical products, including electric vehicles and more. They are also a leader in lab services and testing for pharmacology, genomics, molecular clinical diagnostic testing, forensics, and material science.

 

 How did he get from no job to this great job?

 

During his job search, Ismail had become discouraged. He found that job search in the Bay Area is very competitive, challenging and time consuming. He was lucky his wife somehow heard about The Job Forum! He came to us multiple times. He says he was helped by so many of our volunteers, managers from local companies, who took the time to encourage him, confirm that he had real value as an exceptional candidate, and open up his mind to searching in ways that would better communicate his value.  At The Job Forum he was advised to first stop sending in job applications and instead make new contacts, ask questions, and show himself to be genuinely curious, to focus on learning more about what was valued in various roles and companies on his target list.

 

Ismail listened. He started to try to reach out, ask for coffee meetings, ask via Linkedin for the chance to talk.

 

When reaching out, he said things like this: “I’m curious about your role at XYZ company (industry). I am about to apply to an open role (specifics or an example) and I am curious to hear about your story and your experience. Would you please share it and talk with me? “

 

It worked!

 

Ismail told me “Around 80% of the people I asked were willing to talk and help. There are so many nice American people!”

One thing he learned in the process is to be much more specific. He advises others:

“Be sure to say exactly what you are curious about, with specifics as to what you want to understand about the job role or the company or their experience. Ask lots of real questions about what the person you are speaking with has experienced themselves and ask them what they think it is like to do the job or be in the company or work in the field.”

 

Customizing and tailoring 

All the volunteers at The Job Forum told Ismail that “customizing and tailoring” his approach for each company and role would be very useful and would be necessary to succeed in a modern job search. One field he was interested in was a role in sales or business development.

 

As part of his information gathering campaign, he went to a seminar on using AI in sales, using ChatGPT.  So having heard about the need for customizing in his job search, he had used ChatGPT to fine tune his presentation of his skills. He got insights about various roles, analyzed his resume for fit with the job descriptions, and figured out what to expect as questions and potential answers for the interviews. He also collected so much material from the interviews he had with so many kind people that he began to put it all together, and this helped him tailor and customize his approach so he could more likely be the winning candidate.

 

Ismail says that he had 3 interviews at his new company. For those interviews his goal was to show the company that he is “other oriented” and can do “solution selling,” focusing on delivering product solutions to the prospect’s problem.

 

Value of The Job Forum

Ismail says: “The Job Forum changed everything for me.” He likes that we  bring local company managers together to advise job hunters.  He appreciates that The Job Forum mentors and managers encourage people like him with language like:  “Yes you can do this!” All of this makes a tremendous difference in the ability to keep at it – to take a more effective approach based on what companies want and needs that job hunters can fill.

 

“The Job Forum made me realize that I had the right seeds and just needed help to figure out how to water and grow the plant – so to speak.”

 

Here’s his advice:

 

“Every job hunter must do more, and be more curious – to get clarity by understanding these 3 things:

1. Who they are – the company, service, product and people

2. Who you are – the skills and the value you offer the company that they will want

3. How to combine the two so that you are super focused on what you bring as a solution. Clear insights on how you are the one who can be trusted to fix problems and deliver value in the job.

 

Giving back

Ismail hopes to give back to The Job Forum in order to help others who are looking for jobs. He says: “I truly can’t thank The Job Forum managers enough…” for helping and encouraging him and others looking for jobs in the SF Bay Area.

 

Thank you to Ismail for sharing his success story.

 

by Janet Beach, The Job Forum

Many, if not most, young people are undecided about what kind of work, or careers, they want to pursue, or how to prepare for an effective job search. The Job Forum (a 501c nonprofit now in its 70^th year) has created a new youth program to help students and young people with job search and career advice!

 

Initiated last year, with funding support from the Miranda Lux Foundation, The Job Forum created a “Workforce of the Future” workshop series for young (15-25 age) job seekers. Also helpful in getting this important series off the ground was the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) College and Career Readiness Program.

 

The second workshop in this year’s series of six free sessions are devoted to introducing an array of professions to young job searchers who are, or may be, considering different career paths. The schedule and link for more information and way to register appear below.

·      Good Careers for Young People to Consider Part II – Finance, Sales, Social Media, and Technology	March 8, 2023

These and all workshops leverage the expertise of Job Forum volunteer panelists who represent a wide range of San Francisco Bay Area professions and companies. All young people are welcome to attend and start to make connections with adults in SF Bay Area businesses who want to help mentor them.

 

To register for free, please visit our Eventbrite page or click here: https://moregoodcareers.eventbrite.com.

The Job Forum is looking for great volunteers to help us with the valuable roles. These roles are ones where you can add the experience to your professional work experience. Please ask to interview for the roles you are interested in.

 

Contact Janet Beach for an interview:

 jbeach@usmarketingservices.com

415-309-3575

 

Please briefly state why you are interested and what you hope to contribute.

 

 Non-profit Fundraiser:

• Conduct research for identifying ten new fundraising sources
• Help design marketing case statements for communicating the value of The Job Forum for different funding target audiences
• Create promotional materials and lead our outreach efforts
• Research and write grant proposals
• Develop/improve sponsorship descriptions and materials to help our organization achieve more corporate sponsorships to meet fundraising goals.
• Send appeal letters asking for donations

 

Social Media Marketing Developer for non-profit organization:

 

• Develop and implement Social Media to build awareness of our organization and its programs that help job hunters.
• Set up campaigns via Social Media to spread the word about our organization’s mission.
• Help with fundraising because social media can attract new donors and keeps existing donors engaged and aware of all we are accomplishing weekly
• Help with attracting new volunteers in that Social Media can assist us in growing a more of network of volunteers especially for high growth job and industry categories.
• Create Interactive content and post to social media to allow our audience to participate and feel more engaged.

 

Technical Project Assistant for non-profit organization:

• Provide technical support at select events
• Technical trouble shooting as needed
• Streamline and improve ways to use technology at the organization
• Provide some technical training to volunteers as needed

 

Co-Vice Chairman for non-profit organization:

• Prepare a path for a change of leadership in the future
• Take on responsibility for development and implementation of certain programs and events and add to the Job Forum leadership
• Moderate discussion panels and take over some of the time spent by the ED
• Conduct outreach to attract more volunteers experts for certain sectors
• Streamline the work effort and set up systems to repeat successful programs
• Generate ideas and recommend new programs and processes
• Become the face of the Job Forum leadership for certain target audiences
• Prepare and practice to take on more organization leadership in the future

 

Communications Developer

 

Resource Development and engagement communications for non-profit organization:

• Take on responsibility for development and implementation of finding additional resources and partners and regularly communicating with select cohort groups and programs
• Set up a regular calendar of communications about Job Forum programs and results and volunteers to send to volunteers and supporters
• interview job hunters about their path to employment and write articles for the Job Forum digital newsletter
• Manage and develop regular useful communications for our meet up group to make it more valuable and engaging.

As a professional résumé writer, I am always happy to offer advice and support to job seekers who are working to write a résumé that will be impactful and catch attention in today’s competitive job market.  One of the questions that I am asked quite often concerns the Professional Summary as a key section of a well-written résumé.

 

I consider  the Professional Summary to be one of the three key elements I consider important in an effective résumé, the other two being summaries of Core Competencies and Selected Career Highlights.  One of the mistakes job seekers generally make in writing is a résumé is failing to leverage the top half of page one of the résumé to present a strong value proposition to the potential employer, highlighting what sets the job seeker apart from other candidates. These three summaries are key elements of that value proposition and should appear “above the fold,” as it were.

 

First, let me say that the Professional Summary replaces the Professional Objective, which was once the opening statement of a résumé. The problem with an objective statement is that such a statement tends to be heavily focused on what the candidate wants, what he or she is “seeking.” Quite frankly, the employer doesn’t care what the candidate wants; the employer wants to know what the candidate can do and how well he or she can do it. The Professional Summary, on the other hand, is focused on what makes the candidate unique. In essence, the summary answers the age-old first question of the job interview, “Tell me a little bit about yourself.” It is the opening statement of the résumé and might be thought of as an expanded elevator pitch. The following is a sample summary:

 

Results-oriented, team-focused Human Resources (HR)  professional with more than 10 years of management and operations experience and advanced certification (Senior Professional in Human Resources/SPHR). Solid business acumen and ‘big picture’ outlook paired with understanding of the value of dedicated HR departments. High-level emotional intelligence and proven ability to promote visibility, approachability, and availability of HR. Capable of displaying a sense of fairness and openness in coaching and counseling employees. Proven effectiveness in increasing reliability of HR files. Accustomed to managing multiple time-sensitive tasks.

 

Comprised of seven to five lines of block text, the Professional Summary is the place to introduce the prospective employer to who you are as an employee. This is the place for outlining your “soft skills”—your ability to build consensus within a team, your problem-solving and troubleshooting skills, and your ability to cultivate and leverage relationships with strategic partners. In the summary, you might consider highlighting a unique combination of education and skills. Essentially, the summary is like the blurb on the back of the book jacket, compelling the reader to dig deeper and invest in reading the entire novel.

 

A good Professional Summary will define the job seeker’s career objective, but in a much more organic way. In fact, I would be remiss if I did not mention the importance of writing a résumé with a clearly defined career objective in mind. It is always of paramount importance to know what you hope to accomplish with the résumé. Having a career objective front-of-mind during the writing process ensures that your résumé has focus, and it will, indeed, inform the creation of the summary.

 

One word of caution, however. Keep in mind that recruiters and hiring managers (especially the most seasoned ones) are accustomed to skimming résumés rather quickly. Technical or hard skills are best presented in a bulleted list of Core Competencies. I often see résumés in which the writer has buried some very critical technical skills (those which align with the essential job functions of the target) within the opening summary. Making a very clear delineation between soft skills (Professional Summary) and technical/hard skills (Core Competencies) will serve you very well.

Best of luck to you in  your job search.

 

Written by Jerome Imhoff – resumeshopink@gmail.com