Blogs

Here is a front-page story from the Sacramento Bee, Thursday, December 22, entitled Finding Jobs Out of State Is Tough."

Finally, I started work last week after almost a year of searching. Even with twenty plus years in the Managed Care industry, between the unemployment environment and my lack of a under graduate degree I found it impossible to land a job. Even my many industry contacts throughout Northern California could not help me find work. It was extremely frustrating and my confidence withered away. The transition was ACTION. Personally when I'm not in a place of confidence I'm paralyzed to the point of unwillingness to try anything.

Another SacProNet member found work through his high level of focused searching, networking (both on-line and in person), flexibility and commitment. In just a few months, Robert J. not only found a job but actually achieved a promotion with his new position, as Technical Trainer for Bosch Security Systems. He shared this regarding his SacProNet participation: “The most helpful activity I did at SacProNet was the mock panel interview, because that was my biggest fear, facing a panel. And when I did the mock interview, it didn't feel so bad.

After eight months, Catherine B. found employment with Hewlett-Packard.  This August she starts her new role as a business analyst. Catherine confirmed the weekly SacProNet meetings were her motivation, but participating on the Interview Committee was her most valuable SacProNet experience. She benefited from participating in mock interviews.  While she never had the opportunity to participate as the interviewee, she interacted as part of the interviewing panel on numerous occasions.

After a six-month search, member Robert Becerril landed a premium - if temporary - position as Financial Reporting Analyst with Altair, a division of Vision Service Plan in Rancho Cordova. He began working at Altair on June 1.

I worked with a really talented guy who I thought would never leave the company we worked for … not because he didn’t want to leave … he did. I thought he would never leave because he sold himself so short in his resume, no one would hire him.

He didn’t want to overstate his qualifications, so instead he painted a picture to prospective employers that he wasn’t as good as he really was.

I encouraged him to use power words in his resume and to take ownership of his many successes.

Sacramento Professional Network (SPN) Web developers Charles Russell and Ron McClure presented a popular session at Drupal Camp Sacramento on Saturday, featuring the SPN Web site. In the session, called "Drupal Sites without Custom Code," Charles and Ron used different features of the SPN Web site to explain how - and why - they built it without custom code.

We are pleased to announce that on May 5, 2011, Sacramento Professional Network (SPN) member Chris Levis began a new job as Western Regional Sales Manager with Bar Harbor Biotechnology. Bar Harbor manufactures kits used in the analysis of DNA for research and clinical product development.

For Chris, the bewilderment of losing a long-held job was greatly eased when he joined SPN.

Andrew Franklin is presenting a job talk from 10:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. on June 2 at the Hillsdale One-Stop Career Center.

He will be discussing federal employment opportunities and how to use the usajobs.gov site to apply for and obtain a job with the federal government.

The Hillsdale One-Stop Career Center is located at:

Sacramento Employment and Training Agency
5655 Hillsdale Boulevard, Suite 8
Sacramento, CA 95842
(916) 263-4100