 So I appreciate you all coming. I want to give you some ideas and maybe turn some heads around when it comes to job search during the holidays. I'm going to share my screen. I'm going to go through slides. We'll have discussion as we go through slides. If you have questions, it looks like we're going to have a pretty big group. So in order for you to not lose the question if I keep talking, put the question into chat. Angela will be looking at the chat and I will a few times through the presentation. I'll stop, grab the questions. Angela can read them out. And then we'll have time definitely at the end for more questions. And I want to show you a little bit about some resources that you can find in LinkedIn that have to do with job search during the holidays. So I want to give you as much information as we can give you because the holidays are coming and we know what happens during that time. So let me get the slides set started. I'm waiting for the to share. Can you see my slide yet? No. Not yet. Let's see what happened here. Share screen. It should bring it up. Get to see some of your faces and some of you are actually keeping your cameras on, which is great because I can see you and kind of make a little more contact point. So let me start by introducing myself. So I think that that would be helpful. So I'm David Robbins and I am a job search trainer. I also do one on one coaching with people and I speak at events. I've been a trainer and facilitator for a long time all through my my job history. Originally from Brooklyn, came out to San Francisco and worked for the state of California and then started being interested in training. Then I went to a training company for a few years. Then I went to Eulah Packard for 16 years and again in the occasion department. So I've been involved in training for a long time. And the last probably 16 years, I have been focusing on job search skills and doing my training all along all the different skills that you need to really be aware of when you're in job search. So that's who I am and we're going to focus on job search during the holidays. And I think that what's important when we when we get started here is that we know when I got a couple of extra things on my screen. Let me just clean it up a little bit. How many of you have heard that it's the holidays, nobody's hiring. It's the holidays, all the companies are pretty much shutting down. It's the holidays, don't bother, right? I see a bunch of thumbs up, I see people's hands up, I see electronic hands up. That's the myth and myths are pretty strong. We're going to try to overcome that myth with a thing called reality. So the myth is it's the holidays. Nobody's hiring because it's the holidays, it's the season. Everybody's on vacation, January, things are going to get started. I imagine there's a number of you here in the room that have worked in corporate America before and in corporate America, you know that things don't happen like that they're usually planned for. Now, if we recognize that, then we realize that January is not when hiring is going to automatically start up again. They have to plan for hiring in January. And let's talk a little bit about what the reality is. Employers are hiring, they hire year round. They don't stop saying, oh, well, it's Thanksgiving, let's stop hiring. They hire when they need people. And first of all, you probably realize, and I don't know how many people are here thinking about it, but if you really need something because you need the money, seasonal hiring has happened. And that's big time in the holiday season. I know that when I worked at JVS, we would have Macy's come in and talk to people about seasonal work. And it was a director of HR who was delivering the program and he took a break and I was talking to him in the hall and I said, so what happens after the season, right? You hire people for seasonal work and what happens? He said, well, those that do a really good job, we then offer them full-time work. Now, I don't know if you want to work at Macy's, but the idea is that seasonal work can become full-time work because it's an opportunity for you not only to make some money, but to start showing off your skills, showing off your attitude. So employers are hiring, but here's the thing that people forget and this is where the reality becomes really important when we think about job search during the holidays. This is a great time to network. Now, why do I bring up networking? Is networking important when we're talking about job search? Okay, people are nodding their heads. People are raising their hand. To me, networking is the key to getting a job. When I taught cohorts for JVS, we had a cheer that was networking, networking, and the whole group would yell, networking. Because that's how people get most of their jobs. It's from somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody. The holiday season is a great opportunity to start networking. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. Also, because a lot of people believe the myth, they're not looking for jobs, but you are. So automatically, you have less competition. I don't know, again, how many of you understand where budgeting goes? I've seen it in small companies. I've seen it in very large companies. When it comes to the end of the fiscal year, the budget that's not used has to go back to the company. So if a department had money for a headcount, they had money put aside in the budget for them to hire somebody. But if they don't hire somebody by December 31, if that's their fiscal year, they lose that money. They have to start the next year with a new budget. It doesn't carry over. So there are some organizations where they need to use the money. So they will really be important for them to use the money to get that headcount before the end of the year. That takes them right through the holiday season. Then people sometimes are happier during the holidays. So that helps your networking. That helps your interviewing. People are in better moods. Maybe there's alcohol at the company party. They're feeling good, but that holiday spirit is really important because attitude on both sides is really important to hire in. So that's the myth and that's the reality. So what I want to share with you, just to tell you that I'm just not making this up and saying, well, I read some articles and I did some research and here's what people are saying. I am going to share that with you, but I do want to also take you first into some proof points. This is why I put this presentation together. Here's the proof. This was a couple of years ago when I was working for JVS. A JVS student in December got hired for her A job. Now we would call A jobs the ideal job. A B job is the job that you will take that will help you get your A job down the road. C jobs are the survival jobs, right? Those seasonal jobs. I need to work. I need money. That's what a C job. So A job is that ideal job. So she was hired into her ideal job, full benefits, got a signing bonus, and she doesn't have to start till January. She got hired in December, doesn't have to start till January. So that's, I think we call that holiday season. Okay. Another client that I worked with in December was hired through an agency for a temp job. We're not always looking for temp jobs, but the fact is in December, she got hired for a temp job. So now she had money coming in and she continued her job search looking for her A job. So when you get a job, it doesn't mean that your job search stops. You can continue trying to do to that A job. So again, this is some of the experiences that I've had, but a couple more stories. This was a client who in November, she was working in a volunteer organization, but in November, they made her the director of operations. So she went from volunteering and she probably had a whole bunch of responsibilities as a volunteer, but when it came before the end of the year, they probably had budgets and they said, you know what, we have some more budget. Let's move things into HR, move things into headcount and let's make her the director of operations because that's what we're looking for. And we already know what she can do. So there was not a big interviewing process. There was not a jobs posted. She went from volunteer to director of operations and this was an organization. The reason she was volunteering, it was walking distance from her house. So now she was full time, full benefits. And that was in November. And that, of course, talking about what we're talking about now. And just one more. This was a client again in November. So again, November is the start and many companies, as I said, since they're planning in advance, they're starting to work in November to get things done before December 31st. They don't wait to January 1st and then hire people unless they've interviewed them in November and December. So even if you're not getting hired in the holiday season many times, because you're in job search and taking advantage of the holiday season in job search, you may get a job that's going to start in January. And that's the part that happens when we say, well, jobs start in January, they do, but their funnel is filled. They already know who they want to bring in for final interviews in November and December. So this was a client. She landed her a job after working at a different job that wasn't a great fit. She was interviewed in November. The job offer in November and her start date was in December. So what's going on? What's it all about? We know nobody gets hired during the holidays. That's why I wanted to give you some actual examples. So these are real people. I don't use their names because I don't have the permission to do that, but these are examples of things that I've experienced. So what it's all about is the fact that employers are hiring. And employers don't hire just in certain seasons. Employers hire all year long. The company has different needs. If there are growing markets, if there's competition, if there are internal initiatives where they need more people, they're going to hire. And sometimes that's going to be hiring to staff up before the new year. That means they're going to be hiring most likely in the holiday season. And again, we talked about this. If they have budget deadline at the end of the year, they need to fill the position or they're going to lose the funding. So again, that's the part of the reality that might have helped those four examples help those people get those jobs. And this is something I learned when I was working with salespeople. I was doing the training for sales. I wasn't... Well, I think they wanted me to be a salespeople because I talk a lot. I'm from Brooklyn. I just talk a lot. But they actually had one company that forced me to take a sales job and then I failed miserably. And what he said to me was, you should be in our training group. So that's how I got to be a trainer of trainers. But working with salespeople, I learned one thing and that's the thing called the sales funnel. They don't go and try to sell one person. They don't go to Cynthia and work Cynthia until they get the sale. They go to Cynthia and Lorraine and Maria and Kimberly and Marina. They go to all these people and get them into their sales funnel and then work them many times all at the same time. Well, the same thing happens with companies. They are always trying to keep candidates of choice available for them. Whether you're working or not, you may actually take a job, but you were interviewing or applying to another company. They may then want to interview you even though you already have a job because companies work on their own calendar and their own needs and they like to keep their funnel filled. So they want to have candidates available for open slots that are coming up in the future, which is why networking is so important, right? Networking, networking and networking because you get to meet more people. Last month at the library here, I did a session on informational interviewing, which to me is a cross between networking and research. I consider it to be the gold standard of job search. One thing about it is you're networking with somebody. They're getting to learn who you are. You're getting to learn about the company. You're doing your research about a position or a company or a field that you're interested in, but they're also peaking a little bit into your experience and your skill set so that they may then refer you down the road. That's why networking is so important because that's how they're keeping their funnel filled. So just think about that. Hiring all year long, they don't hire seasonally except for seasonal jobs and even though seasonal jobs, they start hiring in August and September for December jobs. Okay, another thing about what's it all about is that there's less competition and more networking opportunities in the holidays. So you may have a better chance at an interview because the candidate pool is smaller. David, why is the candidate pool smaller? Well, because a lot of people believe the myth. A lot of people drop out from the job search that they take their vacation, even though they're on vacation already, it's somewhat. They're just backing off and because they believe nobody's hiring, so you have the opportunity to step in there because companies are still hiring. The reality is during the holidays for many companies, work actually does slow down because people do take vacation. That gives you the opportunity to make a connection at the company because they're not overloaded with work. What depends on the industry. My wife is a collector for a law firm. She's like overloaded right now. October, November, she got to collect all the money before the books close. So some of that's happening, but then when it comes to December, that's all done and now people are kind of laid back and that's a perfect ton to network with. So as companies approach the holidays, work slows down, giving employees more opportunity to accept informational interviews and do some networking. Also, there's that attitude. There's that holiday spirit. Many times they just feel in a more giving spirit for the holidays and they'll accept those informational interview appointments, et cetera. Okay. I have a couple more things about networking possibilities, but I did want to stop and just find out from Angela, any questions that went into chat that I need to cover before we go on? Hi, David. There's no questions in the chat. Okay. Anybody have any questions about what we spoke about so far? Raise your hand. Angela, can I mute you? Okay. So we're pretty straightforward. One question, David. Let me do the chat question really quick. Someone asks, how do you do or get informational interviews? We already get an hour and a half on that. You ask for them. You find out the person that you want to talk to or someone in an industry you want to know more about and you send them a very nice letter saying, I noticed that you're doing this kind of work. I'd love to learn more about what you do. I wonder if I can get 15 minutes of your time. It really is that simple. I know it sounds amazingly simple, but it is that simple. You just have to realize you're not embarrassing anybody. You're not overwhelming them. If they want to ghost you, they'll ghost you. It's not personal. They don't know who you are. But they might want to say, okay, yeah, I'd love to talk to you about it. People like to talk about their jobs and about their work, and they love to give advice. So that's the informational interview part. Okay, let me take a couple of these hands that went up. I think Kimberly Knowles, your hand went up first. Yeah, hi. I was just wondering if you had any suggestions for good sources to find kind of group, holiday, party, holiday industry type of things, because if you're not working, right, you're not invited to your holiday party, but are there ways to kind of identify places that you might be able to sneak an invite or find your way in? Actually, that was a wonderful segue to the next slide, but I want to answer your question, and then we'll repeat it at the next slide. If you're in a particular field, for example, I'm a trainer. I belong to the Association for Talent Development, ATD. They have local chapters all over the United States and Europe, actually, and they always have a holiday party. They don't care if you're working, not working. You're a member of the Professional Association. So there are lots of professional associations out there. Now, the wonderful thing about Professional Association is it's in the profession you're aspiring to, and there are a lot of people that you can talk to. Some of them are actually looking for work like yourself, but there are a lot of them that are there to hear the speaker, and you'll look at their badge, and they'll say Vice President ABC Company, right? And then you can go over and say, oh, you know, I've been researching ABC Company. Do you think there's some time we could talk? We can talk maybe right after this meeting. They're there, and you now have something in common. So Professional Associations, perfect networking opportunity. But they're also networking organizations. City of San Francisco, I don't know if you live in San Francisco, but even if you don't live in San Francisco, you can go to a group called the Job Forum, and it used to be part of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and then it split off. It became its own 501c3 nonprofit organization. They do weekly networking events. Some of them are for training. Some of them are where they do mock interviews with you. Some of them are resume reviews, but look at the Job Forum in San Francisco. Many of their things are still virtual, but they also have face-to-face. They're not the only one. If you go to Eventbrite, E-E-V-E-N-T-B-R-I-T-E, I think. I think it's Eventbrite spelled wrong. And Eventbrite, you could just put in there, you know, networking and accounting. And you'll see things that pop up. They'll give you lots of things that are many more than what you put into your search bar. And also, you have to put in San Francisco Bay Area, or they'll give you things all over the country. Right? Now, if anybody here is thinking of moving, you can actually try to get an Eventbrite virtual meeting in the city that you're intending to move to and start networking there, even though you're still here. That's how powerful networking is. Okay, I hope that helps. Let me go to Sarah. Hey, thank you so much. I just wanted to go back to the idea of, like, the limited competition pool at this time and them wanting, you know, to make a decision. I've just found that, like, even in recent interviews when I've been making it too close to the final rounds or whatever, you know, like, and they've gone another direction, I've since seen that they're still, that role is still open and they're still continuing to interview, like, so I was just wondering if there's any way to, like, combat those feelings that, like, they're, that it's, you know, the employer's market right now, and people are just, like, looking and holding out for, like, the best that they can find versus, you know, like, they will take whoever is applying for these roles. Yeah. Again, if you, if you put on a hiring manager's hat, they don't take somebody just for a warm body. They're really looking for something specific. I have interviewed and I knew I was, I've got to be the best candidate. I've been doing this work for so long and I don't get picked. And the key is it's not personal. They don't know David Robbins. They didn't eliminate David Robbins. What they did was choose somebody else or three other people. They don't even remember my name. So it's not personal and it's not necessarily that you did anything wrong in the interview process, particularly if you've been going through a few rounds. But, you know, one thing just that we teach in interviewing is if you get through the first round, I'll tell you a mistake I made. I got through the first round and the people who were interviewing me as I was leaving, they met me at the elevator and they said, that was great. I mean, you're perfect for this job. Well, stupid me. I went into the second round completely unprepared figuring I got this sewn up. Right. Well, the hiring manager was in the second round and she asked a whole bunch of different questions. I fell flat on my face. I was almost in tears when I left. I just blew this here. I thought I had it and I didn't. So sometimes it's us being overconfident, but sometimes it's just somebody. The hiring manager's first cousin just showed up. We lose. There's nothing we can do. As far as the less competition, really what I'm talking about there is they may get 300 to 500 resumes for a job opening. During the holidays, they get 100, right? Because there are 200 people who say, well, it's during the holidays. It doesn't pay for me to send them a resume. So that's where the less competition comes in. As far as once you get through the resume process and they invite you for an interview, they're only going to invite usually five people, six people for interviews. They may then go, if they didn't find those people, they'll go deeper down into that resume pool, depending on what the recruiters are saying from that initial interview that they went through. There's no answer that I have ever seen or heard from any of my contacts that say, well, here's the secret to getting through it. It's just prepare, prepare. And for each round, prepare deeper. For each round, go and look at Google News and look for something that that company just showed up in the news. They just announced an acquisition. Bring that up at an interview. And right away they know, oh, David did his due diligence. David just found out about that acquisition. We haven't really put together our announcement, but it's in the news. I know it. I'll try to bring it up. So you just have to get deeper for each round of interviewing if you want to get through there. Okay. Best I could do, Sarah. So Kimberly, Sarah, thank you both for questioning. Garima. Yeah. Thank you for all the wisdom. First of all, I just had a question with respect to networking. I like what should we are asked specifically. I have noticed that I reach out to people. I can learn about them. I introduce myself, but almost every time it just ends there when it comes to getting a referral or more information about an opening or a job. Those connections do not seem very helpful in those scenarios because I of course don't have a long relationship with them. So yeah, just what to do in that scenario. Okay. So one of the rules that we're talking about in informational interview, one of the rules of informational interviewing is you're never asked for a job. You never ask about jobs and never ask about jobs that are open. That's different. Those are the things. And as you said, Garima, if I'm pronouncing your name correctly, those are things you have to ask to somebody who you have a relationship with. Right. But if you're going to research somebody and you know something about them, now you have to start building a relationship. So if it's going to be asking them for 15 minutes of their time, you want to have a whole bunch of questions about the company if you're interested in working at that company. The position, if you're interested in a similar position in any company. Right. I could talk to an accountant in ABC company, even though I'm interested in XYZ company. But I could say, you know, tell me what you do as an accountant in your company. So you have to have your set of questions to ask them about the industry, the company, the job and your research. So you're going to get all this information, which is going to help you to make a couple of determinations. One, do I even want to work for this company? Two, is this the field I really want to do? Now that I hear what an accountant does in corporate America, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm going to start looking at small companies. So you're going to learn a lot just from asking those questions. But once you say, can you tell me if there are any job openings? That's when they say, oh, I'm sorry, you're talking to the wrong person. Go to HR and they'll tell you about jobs. That's not their role. So when you're asking for their time, you are not asking them about a job, about a job opening, how to help you get a job, but you stop building a relationship. They're going to ask you questions about yourself and you're going to tell them about yourself. You're going to tell them a little bit about your skill set. They might say, so why are you interested in an accounting position? Well, I've been doing this and I've been doing that. And I'm really aspiring to accounting. They may then ask you more about your experience and then they might say, you know, you should talk to Mary Ann because she knows more about accounting that you're looking for. And you could use my name and here's how you reach her. So that initial interview, they learn a little bit about you. That's where you get the referral or that's where you get somebody that might say we have a job opening we'd like to talk to you about. The job that I got when I worked for JVS, I got through an informational interview. There was no job posting. There was nothing that said there was a job. Matter of fact, they told me that they didn't have a job. They were creating a job and I happened to have an informational interview right before while they were in the process of creating a job. And two weeks after the informational interview, I got a call from someone who said, would you be interested in coming and talking to us about a position we may open? So key is do not expect them to do your job search for you. They will help you with research. They'll give you advice. What kind of classes do you think I should take? If I want to do this, they'll notice that when you're having a conversation, they'll say, have you studied this? You say, well, I haven't really done that yet. Well, you should take some classes. You could take some online classes and take that because that'll really help you in what you're looking for. That's the research that you're going to do when you're talking to an individual until you meet with them a second time and maybe a third time. And then you're starting to build up a relationship and they'll be helpful in any openings that they have or openings that they know of in a different company. But you're right, Grimmy. You have to first build a relationship if you're going to start talking about jobs. I hope that helps. One more question from Jordan. Hi, I had a question in the meetings. It's a bit relevant also towards networking. How do you follow up when networking regarding job opportunities? Well, again, if you're networking with someone and you're talking to them, there may not be any need for follow-up, but let's say you go to the question about professional associations. Let's say you go to a professional association meeting at a holiday party and you then see a person there that is in the company that you're interested in. So you could talk to them and say, I'd love to get some time with you and talk to you about the company. I'm really interested in your company. And when you meet with them, you're going to have your questions prepared in advance and you'll ask them those questions. You'll get the answers and that's your research. Now, when that meeting is over, what should you do? Whether it's an informational interview or a follow-up interview, what should you do after an interview? There you go. Lorraine got it. You have to send a thank you. And I don't call it a thank you letter. I call it a follow-up email because in there, you're going to thank them for their time. You're going to tell them something in particular that you might have learned from them and of interest to you. And then you might attach an article that you have that they might be interested in. And then you could end with, I hope that we'll have time to meet again. If it's okay, I'll get back in touch with you soon. So there's the follow-up. The follow-up is asking them for another get-together, another meeting, or you could then say, I really appreciated the time we had together. Here's something I know we were talking about that this might be helpful to you. I'd love to take you to coffee to thank you for this. Let me know if that works for you. Now, some people do that when they ask for an informational interview. They say, I'd like 15 to 20 minutes of your time. I'll buy you coffee. That's fine. I'll have coffee after the fact. And that's because what I found, my experience is that many people like to do an informational interview in their office or on their own computer because that's where they're comfortable. They don't really want to go out and talk to a stranger at a cafe necessarily. Some of them do. Some of them love going out all the time. But I think it's a nice little tip and saying I'd like to thank you for this. I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee. Is there a time that we can meet? So those are some of the things that you can do, Jordan, to follow up. But again, it would come along with the follow-up email or thank you email. OK. I have just a few more slides. And I want to take you through them. I'm sorry. I left the slide up here the whole time. OK. There it is. Network possibilities. We talked about this. And that's when I think it was Kimberly. That's about where do we go? Yeah. This is the next slide. Professional associations and networking organizations. There are a lot of network organizations. So I didn't put it in here. But Eventbrite is one job forum. It's a regular networking environment. The library sometimes has networking environments also. So always look to the San Francisco Public Library or your local library. Fundraisers. This is fundraising season also. I know it because I'm getting inundated with emails. Every organization I ever gave a dime to is now coming back for that next dime. But they also have events. So attending fundraisers, attending open houses, holiday parties with friends. Somebody said, you know, where are those things where I can meet professionals? Are none of your friends professionals? I would bet that some of your friends are professionals. OK. And then I know the answer came right through the screen. But they're not in my field. So what? Do they know someone in your field? Do they even know that you're looking for work? Oh, I don't want to tell them that's embarrassing. No, it's not embarrassing. I mean, since March of 2020, when so many of us were laid off because of COVID, people realize people get laid off, right? Just read the news, right? Just tech companies laying off 2,500. I told you, I think I mentioned I worked for you with Packard. I was there 16 years and then a new CEO came in and 15,000 of us were let go all at once, right? Nothing for me to be embarrassed about. That was a really bad CEO. That's what I was concerned. But the point is, when you're going to parties with friends, there's nothing wrong with saying, I'm looking for a new job. You don't have to say, I'm not working. You can even just say, I'm looking for a new job. Oh, what are you looking for? I'm looking for something in biotech. You know, I did years ago. I got my degree in biology. And I think that biotech would be a great place for me. Really? I have a cousin that's working at a small biotech from. You want me to, you know? Now, what I just said, does that make sense at all? Is that like somewhat logical that somebody might know somebody who knows somebody who might be looking for you, even though they don't know who you are? So that's where I say, even holiday parties with friends, even if they're virtual. I have a group of friends that were called the Brooklyn Codgers. If you're not familiar with the term, Codger, it's old people. We're all friends from, some of us from junior high school and high school, most of us from college, and then others from dating other people who dated other people. But there's, there's 10 of us. We meet regularly on email. But then after March 2020, we realized that we all knew how to use Zoom. We started meeting in Zoom. And we talked to one another about what's going on. And some of them know somebody who knows somebody. And a good friend of mine has been doing these kinds of presentations. He's a musician. He does a presentation on the three of these of music. Bach, Beethoven and the Beatles. And he would do it virtually at libraries. And then since he realized he was virtual, he started doing it at libraries all over the country. And then AARP got wind of it. And now he's doing those kinds of things for him. And I told him that I was doing these for San Francisco Public Libraries volunteer. He said, you should talk to AARP. There's a friend who can maybe network me into another opportunity. So I'm not talking off the top of my head. I try to use my own life experience. Or people saying my lived experience. I don't know where that came from lived. But I want to use my lived experience to share with people. Because I can be passionate about that. I know it works. I know I got hired through an informational interview. I know people that I worked with at JVS that got hired through informational interviews. I also know of an industry that I rejected after an informational interview. An industry I thought I would love and had an informational interview. And I realized, oh, I don't want to do that. It saved me a lot of grief. So I know these things and I'm trying to share them with you. Now, the other thing is network possibilities, LinkedIn. I sometimes teach classes for the library in LinkedIn. One on just your profile. The other on how to do networking and job search through LinkedIn. But the idea is if you have been active at all in LinkedIn, I have a number of people that are your first degree connections. Now, I have my first connections that go back to when I worked at Hewlett Packard and I left there in 2005. So that's a while ago, right? More than a year or two. But I'm going to LinkedIn now in the holiday season. I go into LinkedIn and I go to my connections and I filter it for Hewlett Packard, but they split it into two companies. So HP, Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. And I filter for that. And I usually come up with eight or 10 people who are still there who were my colleagues. And then I could send each of them a little holiday greeting. How would I do that? I haven't spoken. Some of them I spoke to since 2005. Most of them I haven't. But I see them when they get promoted or they change jobs and now they're in a new position. And when I see that on LinkedIn, I always say congratulations. I hope it goes really well for you. That little bit is what networking is. And just sending you have an opportunity there with LinkedIn to actually send them a holiday greeting. And then sometimes we'll then look you up and they'll notice that you might be looking for something. You might have that green banner in your profile face picture that says open to work. And then they might actually send something back to you saying, hey, if you want to do something I know of somebody. So those are the things that are networking. Networking is not just, oh, it's so scary. I have to talk to a stranger. Talk to people that are not strangers. First, get used to talk to people. Ask somebody who knows somebody. And then you have a warm introduction to somebody. So those are all the things that you could do for networking possibilities. And then when I do these presentations, I take my experience and things that I've been teaching over the years and then I go look for, do more research. And I saw this in forums. Smart ways to search during the holidays. And I always pick something that's not just a job search article. I do something or a job search publisher. This is forums, forums magazine. We think of that for business. But they do talk about job search. So some tips that I'll share with you from forums, which I agree with completely. Create a job search schedule to keep up the momentum. And that's one of the things that happens during the holidays that we start losing track of a calendar for job search. You should have that calendar. And run it right through the holiday season. So on Monday, I'm going to look for a networking opportunity. On Tuesday, I'm going to go through Eventbrite. And I'm going to look to join a professional association. On Wednesday, I'm going to apply for a job search. And I'm going to look at two jobs I noticed that are posted. But have that calendar. That keeps the momentum. Make the lack of applicants an advantage for you. So this is again where forums is agreeing with me. I'm agreeing with forums. I don't know. But there's a lack of applicants because people believe the myth. So number one, get past the myth. And automatically, you might have a slightly better chance of having a recruiter get to your resume. And then reconnect with contacts. That's a great opportunity during the holidays. As I said, I do with LinkedIn contacts. I'll do it with my codgers. But just friends and family if you want to. I don't get to involve in family stuff, but friends, old friends. And sometimes I haven't talked to that person 10 years. So what? Be a perfect thing to write in the car. Wow. I realized that we've been out of touch for 10 years. That's a whole decade. Let you know that I'm thinking of you in this holiday season. And I hope all is going well with you. That might be somebody who's going, oh, it's so nice that I just heard from David Robbins. And they'll tell two of their friends and I'll go, David Robbins. Oh, give me his address. I want to send something to him. Makes me think I. Old friend from junior high school, high school. And then we kind of fell out of touch and every so often we'd be in touch. But I found that that he, I live in Oakland now. And he lives in Berkeley. But I found it out through one of my conjure friends who said, he was going to go meet with Mark. And I went, where's Mark? Oh, he's in Berkeley. Really? So my wife and I went over to see him. I haven't seen him in probably 10 years or more. But I called him up and we talked and he's in a completely different industry than I am. So we weren't really talking about work things, but I was telling him about what I was looking to do, what my future plans are. It was great opportunity. So the idea of reconnecting with your contacts, no matter how far back they go. If you think that somebody who you used to talk to, you used to have a good time with, right? We played in a band together in high school. So we did have something to talk about. The band was called the Sin Fetix, spelled S-I-N, Fetix High School. Who are you? High school seniors. What do you need them? You may have free time and some of you have free time all the time, but if you do have free time, make you free time productive. And that goes along with creating a job search schedule, right? So you can do things to work on your job search. And what Forbes is saying here is something interesting. Get ahead of the New Year's job seekers, right? Those are the people that believe the myth. They stop job search and they started up again in the new year. So I'm going to show you some of them if you start your job search in the holidays. Okay. I can only pound this into people so much. So I have resources. Let me just show you things that I've used and things you could look at. Smart ways to job search during the holiday season from Forbes. So if you want to get more depth into that list that I mentioned earlier, there's the article. Alison Doyle is a writer on job search that I've been using for years and years. She's one of my go-to people. 11 reasons to job search during the holidays. And she usually updates this every year or two. So she's always keeping it up to date. This top resume was interesting. Why the holidays may be the best time of year to look for a job. Again, a really interesting article that I can recommend. But there's one other thing that I want to show you. And I have the slide here, but then I'm going to take you into LinkedIn. You can search for what you're looking for in LinkedIn. And there are, you know, five hundred and fifty million registered users in LinkedIn. So a lot of people who might be able to be where their information might be responding to your search. So you can see videos and articles. So I'm going to stop sharing right now. And I'm going to let's see, I have a couple of things here. I'm going to get into my LinkedIn, which somehow closed. So I'm going to have to bring it back up. Bear with me, please. Okay, it's coming up. So bear with me. I'll be right with you. Okay. And I'm going to go search. So let me, let me get you back in front of me. And let me share, let me share this screen now. Let's get a couple of things out of the way. So I'm not sharing anybody else personal information. I'm okay. My share screen is loading. So it's coming up in a minute. Okay. So you should see my LinkedIn. And I'm going to go into the search bar. And I'm going to put in areas I already did it before. Job search during the holidays. The first thing that comes up is me because I posted this on LinkedIn. I don't know if, if some of you came here because you haven't seen this on LinkedIn, but I was promoting this workshop. This is a podcast that also shows up in LinkedIn. It's, it's from LinkedIn. It's called get hired. It's, it's every week. I think on Wednesdays that Andrew Seaman posts this, should you change your job? Oh, should you change your job search at the end of the year? Okay. And he does this whole thing is how to job search during the holidays. And many times he's interviewing somebody like a recruiter or he's interviewing a hiring manager. And Dr. Kyle Elliott looking for new roles during the holiday season can be stressful, particularly even recently laid off. But then he puts in here more information. Here's how you do it. You might consider targeting a contract role. Okay. And then there's another one. JT or Donna does a lot of posting about job search. Her whole business is that she does work at daily. It's holiday party season. Well, I used it. It used to be holiday party season, but I'm not working now. So I can take advantage of those parties. More people, more people, the holiday momentum out of job search during the holidays and beyond. And Oscar Garcia. I just love Oscar Garcia. He's a motivational speaker. He started primarily working about career, like he does career talk with Oscar Garcia with OG. When is the best time to start your job search? And he says now. There is no best time. But now means during the holiday season, keep your job search going. For those of you that are Latin X, he does a number of presentations, particularly focused on the Latin community and try to get some networking going there. So he brings, he brings his own personality and his daughter who works with him doing these kinds of programs into play. So to show you, I put it here. I don't know if people realize you can search, not just for somebody's name. You could search for lots of things. So job search during the holidays and you could see all the articles here get hired again. Do you plan to alter your job search during the holiday months? This was three years ago, but still good information. So all of this is available when you do this kind of search. I'm going to get you out of my LinkedIn, if I can. And we'll go back into the slide set and share this screen. Share screen. Here somewhere. Here it is. Okay. So it's loading. And this is just the slide that we were talking about, which is resources in LinkedIn. Search on job search during the holidays. Search on, you know, accountants. And you'll get the same thing. So you can use the job tab in LinkedIn, but you could just do a generic search on a particular topic and you'll get a lot of, potentially you'll get a lot of information. Okay. Just wanted to end with me. So contact information here. So my LinkedIn profile is here. Now I'm going to just give you a caveat because I know there are people that might want to get in touch with you, which I'm flatter and I would love to get in touch with you. If when you send me the invitation, you also send a note. Because I get people who just send me, just here's an invitation. I'd like to connect with you and I'm going, why? So on the note, just say, I was at your presentation with the library. I wanted to ask you some questions. Add the note, which you can do in LinkedIn, when you're going to invite me from my profile, from my profile and hit connect, there'll be something that says add a note, and you can just write a little note. And those are the ones that I respond to. My email address is there also. And I want to thank you for coming, but I do want to, we have a little more time. If there are any more questions that people have, I'm here to answer any of those questions. So Angela, I don't know if anything came up in the chat. Yes, there was quite a bit actually regarding networking. So someone asked, what about if your LinkedIn account does not display your picture? How is that addressed? Many times your cruders will just bypass your LinkedIn profile. So if they don't see a picture, or if they see a photo of your cat, because people think that it's the same as Facebook, they're just bypassing. It's considered not having a complete profile. So I would highly recommend that you take a photo of yourself. Now, there are people that I work with. I teach a session on job search over 50. And the people say, you know, they're going to see that I'm over 50. Yes, they will. And I have to remind them that if they get chosen and if they're invited for an interview, the interviewer will notice that they're over 50. It's not something that you want to hide. If they're agist, you don't want to work there. Good, let them eliminate you. Bye. Okay. But when you have a photo, you're automatically kind of making some kind of contact. So the idea is don't take a photo like I have here, what I use for Zoom. Take a plain background, a headshot so it's your shoulders, shoulders and a little bit past the top of your head. Hand your camera, your phone, your camera to a friend. I have to take 35 pictures. And then pick the one that you like the best and put it into LinkedIn. So that's going to help you. Having no picture does not help you. It works against you. Okay. Thank you for that. What percentage of job postings are just to get names? Not a very high job percentage. I believe that's also a myth. Why do they need names? They have to pay for the job posting. You know that. Or maybe you don't know that. The way that monster, even LinkedIn, for their job postings, the company has to pay to post the job. Zip Recruiter, if you listen to the ads on the radio, Zip Recruiter are the first month free. But then the second month, not free. So why would they invest in posting jobs to just collect names? They post jobs to find a candidate that they could hire. And I have to tell you that the better way to look for a job is through networking. There's nothing wrong with looking at the job postings, but there are many companies. I told you when I got hired at JVS, they didn't have a job posting because they didn't have a job. They met me and they then wanted to talk to me about a job they were planning to have. So that's called the hidden job market, jobs that are not posted yet. Companies know that they have openings and their employees are told about jobs that are open because many times they'll hire from the employee pool first and if they don't have any good candidates or nobody applies, they'll then make it for external owners. But the people who are there, if you are networking with people in a company, they know that there's now a job opening. They can contact you and say, hey, get ready. There's going to be an announcement about this job opening. Now, why do they want to help you? Because if you get hired and they are referring you into the job, they get a bonus. I know they're doing it for the goodness of their heart, but also because it's a couple of extra bucks in their pocket. Yeah, the idea is I don't believe that many companies, if any companies pay the money to, unless it's a phony company, right? In case you should do some research before you apply to a job posting. There are fake jobs. They are there to get information from them. Even to the point of you apply and then they got to contact you back and say, yes, we're very interested in working with you. Please send us this information, and that includes your bank account, your security number, all the things that they don't need until after you're hired. So you should do your research. Those are the companies that might be collecting names and trying to get personal information. But real companies, I don't understand why they would do that. Thank you, David. Nowadays, there are multiple ways to contact people. I wish to reach out to a specific person. I usually prefer email, but do you think calling or using LinkedIn slash social networks additionally is a good idea or would that be too much? Well, if you know their email, email gets them directly. Phone is nice, but they don't know who you are. They're going to pick up the phone and you might come off as if you're trying to sell them a new TV system. So to me, email is the best way to do it. But if you see them on LinkedIn, remember, unless you have a premium account, you can't send them an email in LinkedIn unless you have a premium account. But you can always invite them to connect with you. And in that note that I asked you to send to me, in that note, you could say, I'm really interested in having an informational interview with you if you have time. I'd love 15 minutes of your time. And that way they see that you're interested in them and you want to have a meeting with them. And they might also connect with you, in which case then you can send emails back and forth. So again, I think email is the most direct. LinkedIn is next. Let's be honest. There are a lot of people that don't look at LinkedIn regularly, but they look at their email almost every day, if not three or four times a day. So that to me is the best. Through other social networks, only if you notice that they're very active on the social network. I used to teach a class on Twitter for job search, which I don't touch now at all. But if you're using Insta and you notice that they are all the time and they're talking about jobs and they're talking about things, not a bad place to send something, but I would also send email. Thank you, David. This is in regards to LinkedIn. Speaking of that green banner open to work, I've heard mixed feelings on it that it might be a big turnoff to prospective employers. What's your take on that one? You know, I went when I was laid off, I did not put that on there because that's announcing to the world that I'm looking, but I wasn't interested in letting the whole world know. But I am interested in having recruiters know. So there's a way that you could put open to work and you could then click on a box that says only for recruiters. So they see that you're open to work. Recruiters look at your profile differently than everybody else. They pay to look at profiles. So they will see that you're open to work, but you won't have a green banner. Now I did talk to recruiters who said, oh, when I see the green banner, it draws me to their account. So it works both ways. So I, yes, there are people, I don't think that companies think that that would be a turnoff except for companies that don't like to hire people who are unemployed. There are a lot of companies that their first choice is to hire somebody who's already working. So when they see that that says you're unemployed, that's not something that they would want, but there are recruiters who are drawn to that. So I don't know what the best choice is. Knowing that recruiters will see that you're open to work without the green banner, that might be a way to go. But I don't think there's, I think it's a 50-50. Thank you, David. Someone asked, is LinkedIn the best? What about Indeed or Glassdoor? Very different applications, very different tools. Indeed is great. And Indeed now will take your resume and help you create a resume. So Indeed is kind of trying to catch up to LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is not a job search site. LinkedIn is a networking site, which is why I love it. LinkedIn was created for professional networking. And yes, they have a job board, but the benefit you get in LinkedIn is the networking piece. You don't get that in Indeed that I know of. Glassdoor will give you things that people post. So if you are interested in a company, you use Glassdoor and you can see comments that people post. Remember the caveat, people who are not happy with their jobs will post really bad things about a company. People who are really happy with their jobs usually don't post anything. So be careful of the slants that you might find in Glassdoor or even in Indeed. But different tool. LinkedIn is a networking application. They don't have the strength in networking that you can get from LinkedIn. So I don't consider them to compete with one another. As far as the job board, I say, yeah, look for jobs on Indeed. Great, and look for jobs in the LinkedIn job board. Great. And even Monster, which has been around for a gazillion years. Also, if you look at job boards, you can look at the ones that are industry-specific. So if you are interested in working for nonprofit, you should be using idealist.org, ideal, ideal list. If you're looking for tech, you should go to DICE.com. So there are some specifics. And if you're over 50 and you want to know, you know, what companies are hiring people over 50, go to AARP. You know, again, another myth. AARP job boards only have Walmart greeters. No, no, no, they don't. No, they don't. They only work with companies that will publish a guarantee that they will hire people who are over 50. So not that they will prefer people over 50, but they are open to that. So AARP has a job board also. So you look at specialty job boards, but LinkedIn is a networking application. Okay, another one. Thank you. Someone asks, how do you search for entry-level broadcasting jobs? Entry-level broadcasting. I mean, the only way to do it is to do that. The other is to network with people in broadcasting. Right? I mean, to me, that would be the best. Do you know anybody in broadcasting? Do you know of a company that is broadcasting? A broadcasting organization that you can go and research on LinkedIn to see who's in there and see if you can see somebody who might be interested or open to talk to you. And talk to that person. Say, you know, I would love to get into broadcasting. Can you tell me more about it? How did you get into broadcasting? Is there an opportunity for entry-level broadcasting? And they'll tell you those things. So networking is the way that you're actually going to talk human to human. But the other is to do a good search. AI is, you know, Bing has a chat GPT built into it. So if you use Bing as a search site, you can just in their search bar click on that other AI also. And then entry-level broadcasting jobs. And just see what, see what comes up with. If you don't like their answers, ask it again a different way. That's one thing we're learning about using AI is it doesn't really read your mind. So it's all, it's all based on the prompt that you get. So nothing wrong with asking it a question and then doing it again, asking it a different way. It's interesting watching. I read some people's prompts and they say, could you please give me, and there's a lot of people who are very courteous, courteous, right? Even I thank you afterwards. It's not a person. It's an electronic brain. But that's another way to do it. You know, just do a search. And I don't know who I'm talking to right now, but I can impress upon you. Do some research first on informational interviewing. If you go to the LinkedIn YouTube channel, you can find my 90-minute session on informational interviewing. But learn, oh, Lorraine gave a thank you. Two thumbs up. But research informational interviewing, because I don't make you more comfortable with getting more information on. I want to learn more about entry-level broadcasting jobs. I know a couple of people who are sports, working their way into being sports break, sports broadcasters. And they started with high school, calling games, you know, and then they applied for jobs at colleges, you know, calling games, and then doing, you know, background work. It's interesting. Sometimes you're going to look for where do you start that's even below where you thought was entry-level. Informational interviewing would be the best way to find those kinds of things. Okay, we still have a few more minutes. Any other questions? Thank you, David. There is a question about resume. Someone's asking, what is the current advice on the length of resume? Long career and cannot fit all job experience on one page? Should one customize a resume for each job application? Yes. Okay. No, and yes. Yes, you should customize a resume for every job application. They don't care how wonderful you are. They only care about how wonderful you will be working for them, doing what is on the job description. So if you have a job description, you write your resume to the job description. Okay. That's number one. Number two, when I got laid off from HP, I put together a resume. It was five pages long. Now that's silly. I mean, what am I going to do with that? Actually, it wasn't bad because I realized that that was basically a job history and I could take pieces of it to put into a real actual resume. The length of a resume. One page is great and probably all people need, if they're just getting out of school, because they don't have a lot of experience. But if you have a lot of experience, I have a lot of experience. My resume is two pages. One of the people that I worked with that had a three-page resume and I said, why do you have a three-page resume? Well, I have a lot of experience. I said, I know you have a lot of experience, but is all of the experience on your resume pertinent to what the hybrid match is looking for? Well, no, but it shows how good I can do other things. They said, they don't care about that. They'll do that in the interview. They're going to look at a resume that responds exactly to their job description and they'll look at yours. And it has all this wonderful things about you, but they just need somebody to fill this position. So customize. Two-page maximum. How much time do recruiters and hiring managers spend when they first look at a resume? Anybody know? Okay. Ten minutes? No. Ten seconds. Five minutes? Yeah. Okay. Statistically, six seconds. They spend six seconds looking at your resume. Why? Because they know what they're looking for. They're scanning, right? Yeah, they're just, they're going to start at the top usually. I did have a recruiter who actually covers the summary stuff on the resume and just looks at the experience. It's interesting. But usually they start at the top and they just scan down. And if they don't see what they're looking for in scanning, even that first page, they might look at the second page to see education. But if they don't see anything that they're looking for, it goes into the other pile. You have to catch their attention in the top third of the first page. So if they scan, they go, oh, oh, oh, oh, this is interesting. I wonder what role he had when he did this. And then they'll go looking for more depth in the rest of your resume. So if that's the human factor of resumes, then you know the answer to the question, right? They're going to only scan my resume. They don't respond to what they're looking for. Now I'm applying to this accounting job and that accounting job. So therefore I can use the same resume, right? Wrong. Because this accounting job is focused on compliance and this accounting job is focused on general ledger. They're not asking for the same thing. Therefore you have to respond to each one specifically. Will most of your resume be the same? But definitely in that summary of qualifications, in the top third, maybe that most recent job or whatever you can do to focus on what it is that they're looking for, that's going to be the key to resume writing. Also don't make it fancy. Don't use icons. Don't use boxes. Don't use columns. Don't use columns. Don't use colors. Because many times you do that and your resume will not get through the applicant tracking system, and therefore they won't even see your resume. So there are a few things that you should think about in resumes, but in answer directly to your question, 2-page maximum, and the experience that you're going to put on that is only responding to what it is to what it is that they're looking for, which may actually end up being one page. They'll know that you have more experience and they'll be able to use that when they do interviews. Okay, it's 11.29. I could take one more question if you have. Yeah, we can take one more question. Someone's asking any unique advice for someone who is returning to work after a lengthy sabbaticals, especially in tech. Yes, use the great word sabbatical. I was listening to that podcast yesterday. I'm starting to go out for walks. I was listening to music, but I started listening to that get hired. He had on somebody who was talking about people getting hired. He asked that question about what are the gaps? You use that keyword sabbatical. Don't highlight it as a gap. Highlight it as I took a sabbatical. What they want to know is what did you do while you were not working at a particular job? Did you volunteer? Well, first of all, if you volunteered, that's experience. You could actually put that down. That's not part of sabbatical. But I might put sabbatical for family reasons. Right? Sabbatical for personal reasons. But in there, I would say that I took classes in UX design. I took classes in instructional design. I took classes in using PowerPoint. Put in there what you were doing and that you're dealing as a continuous learner. And that's one way to fill it on the resume. They understand that people have gaps, particularly since COVID. When people say gaps will eliminate you, it's only if you have multiple gaps throughout your resume, that looks like you can't keep a job. They really don't have time for you. But if you have a gap, or even two gaps far apart, but you could identify the things that you've done to keep, pardon me, things that you've done to keep learning, to keep up your skillset, volunteering. If you're an accountant or you're an aspiring accountant and you were working as a volunteer bookkeeper for your church, for your synagogue, for your mosque, put it down. That's called experience. So take advantage of those things. And sabbatical is a great word because that doesn't say unemployed during sabbatical. They'll think you're a professor. Thank you, David. So it's the end. It's 11.32. So we're going to end the presentation now. I'd like to thank David for coming on and sharing information about job searching during the holidays. I'd also like to thank everyone for joining. And I thank you for all your questions. I hope you guys found this presentation informative and helpful to you. And just a reminder, because I'm not sure Angela probably said this at the beginning, you will get the slide set that I used and the slide set that Angela used. And then you'll have access to the video. Correct. Yes, I'll be sending all that that David just listed after the presentation ends, along with a survey. And if you guys can take the time to fill out the survey, that'll be great. Any feedback can help us improve in our programming. With that, thank you, everyone. And I hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Good luck, everyone.