ANNOUNCING EVENTS IN THE NSoW NEWSLETTER

Meetings are great ways of meeting people. (duh!)

Here are some ideas for meetings:

Hold a Looking for Work party - The best way to paint an apartment is not to hire painters, but to buy paint, brushes, and a keg and hold a Paint Party. (Just make sure your friends paint first, imbibe later.) You can do the same thing when you’re looking for work.

Some things to consider:

• People want to have fun, not feel your pain – so make sure to make it a PARTY.
• Your friends want to help, but they won’t respond if they feel they can’t be of use to you.  Therefore, don’t make the party just about you finding a job (few people can offer you a job). Rather, explain that, now that you have free time, you want to get people together so as to learn from them.
• Invite friends to bring their friends – make it a networking event. Make sure  it isn’t all about you – but explain that at this party it is not impolite to talk about work.
• Invite NSoW- Our subscribers are sympathetic and helpful

Career Fairs - These can be good places to find work. Some of the best fairs for experienced people are the aimed at college students. Why? If you are looking for a senior position, you won’t be in competition with newbies. It is much easier to “work a show” with a friend, so invite everyone you know to come with you; and tell NSoW readers too.

Trade Shows - Even better than career fairs are trade shows. You’ll bypass H. R., and talk to professionals who value relationships – after all, they are at the show to meet people. Ask questions like, “How do I learn your product well enough to land a job using it?” “Who else do you know inside your company, or elsewhere, who I should meet?” and of course, always ask, “How may I be of help to you?” (I took a programmer friend who had been out of work for nearly a year to a computer show, and forced him to go to each booth and introduce himself. He had three job offers within one week.) Don’t go alone; invite your friends and all of NSoW to go with you.

Teach Your Product - Do you have a product that needs to be learned before it can be used? The next time you hold a training session (or even a webinar), why not invite NSoW members? Once someone has taken the initiative and time to learn your product, they might: recommend you to others, land a job with a client of yours (or become a new client when they land somewhere), write articles about your company and product, etc. Do not overlook the positive publicity value in helping unemployed people learn things for free.

Create your own “focus group” – Don’t keep your problems to yourself. Gather your friends (and strangers), and get to work on brainstorming a solution. For example, when I wanted to know what I should make sure to tell my sons before they went to college, I got 18 people together and asked them. Not only did they have good ideas, the exercise led to a number of writing projects. When a friend needed help marketing himself, he did something similar. Not only did the attendees give him advice, they told their friends about him too.

Please consider the following:

Announce everything here - If you don’t mind having someone new show up at a meeting, please let us know about it.

Announce everywhere; not just here - Except in locations with large numbers of NSoW subscribers (e.g. New York, London, etc.), you may not attract enough people to make it interesting – so cast a broad net.

Attend the things you announce - We want to hear about things you will be attending – not advertising for things you don’t care about.

Write up the experience – We want to hear how the meeting went. (Use the “Tell a Story” option to let us know what happened.)

Now submit a meeting to our newsletter.

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Examples of a submission:

Hear me tell a story.
Details: I will be holding an informal gathering for those who would like to hear me tell a few stories about how I wrote a number one bestselling novel. I spent many years getting to this point in my life and would like to offer my advice to others looking to do the same, or something similar. I will be at the Barnes & Noble in Tribeca in Manhattan on Saturday at noon.

Join our study group.
Details: I would like to get four or five people together to form a study group to learn web languages, like HTML and CSS. I’ve found the best way to learn something is to jump right in, and have others do the same. Starting a study group will help us learn more from one another. I am interested in meeting somewhere in northern New Jersey, preferably in a place like Barnes & Noble. All you have to do is bring your laptop and be ready to jump right in. You can email me at email@xyz.com to set up a specific time, date and location.

Join our “information interviewing” network.
Details: Seven of us have been meeting regularly to help each other learn about the job market. We look for people who agree to meet with us for lunch or coffee. The goal is not to ask for a job (people don‘t like being pestered in this way), but rather to learn more about their work and industry. This has been a great way to expand our horizons, increase our network, be of help to others, and (in the case of two of us) land a job. We would like to grow to as many as 10 people, and we are very happy help you start your own group). We are meeting next in Philadelphia, PA on Wednesday at 6:30. Please write to xxxx@yyyy.com for details. (PS, If you are not near, we have prepared a small document (pdf) that describes how you might be able to do something like this in your area. Just ask, we‘ll send it.)