"Hey, what's wrong with me?"

Regular readers and participants of the Job Search Jam Session in September will recognize Hari Narayanan who is quoted in this article:

Cortes's colleague at the Milford center, business service representative Hari Narayanan, said local companies are willing to hire candidates - even unemployed ones - who show initiative. 

"It's more of what people have been doing while they're unemployed," he said. "Employers are looking for a skill-set. Their number one concern is finding the right people to come work for them." 

But some laid-off job hunters say it's not so easy to convince companies they're worth hiring - or even deserving of an interview. Lisa, a 44-year-old Framingham resident who withheld her last name so as not to hinder her job search, said her setbacks since losing her human resources job in May have made that task even more difficult by hurting her self-confidence.

Read more: http://www.milforddailynews.com/archive/x1872805847/Job-seekers-fight-frustration-and-limited-opportunities-for-work#ixzz1bbTxghqF

There may be nothing wrong with you. Times are tough. Be confident in yourself. Layout a plan, set a target and start networking. The more you network, especially with information interviews, the better your chances will be of finding the right information and making the right connections to land where you want to be.

Hopkinton Networking Group: Hari Narayanan

Hello Everyone,

The agenda for this Friday's Hopkinton Networkers Group (HNG) meeting will be featured by our speaker, Hari Narayanan. The facilitator for this week will be Jim Lane. We will devote the first hour, from 10 to 11 AM to the following agenda: Welcome, Landings, Announcements, New Member Intros, and Needs & Leads. Please arrive early, so we can make every effort to start on time. In the second hour, strating at 11AM, Hari will speak about "The Job Ready List” and have dialog and answer our questions.

Speaker Topic: “The Job Ready List”

With the rush to land the right job, we at times fail or become disorganized in being truly “job ready”. Hari is an expert at coaching and teaching how to be “job ready”.

In this workshop, you will learn or just be “refreshed” on goal setting, all your KSA’s, finding the right job, re-identifying your own skills, being aware of key or winning words, talk about effective resumes and cover letters, your networking, your elevator speech, right ways to interview and how thank you letters can be effective.

About Hari Narayanan
Hari is the Career Coach and Business Service representative at the Milford, MA Workforce Central Career Center. Born in India, has a graduate degree in chemical engineering from Clarkson University NY. Worked in Polaroid for 16 years spanning R&D, Engineering, Manufacturing, Customer focused product research & development until the company closed. Moved on to the other end of the spectrum to work with a private marketing company to create and establish eleven international markets for basic commodities companies. Moved on to work with a German Instrumentation company to expand their market in North America. Got laid off, again which gave him the motivation to start his own company while searching for his next career move. He is now working in Business Services for the State of Mass in the Division of Career Services. Married with two children in High School.

Schedule for HNG Meetings:
November 4, 2011 Anne Crawford "Is Your Elevator Speech Getting You to the Next Level"
November 18, 2011
December 2, 2011
December 16, 2011
*** HAPPY NEW YEAR ****
January 20, 2012 Clare Harlow " People Reading with DiSC"

General Information:
The networking group meets in Hopkinton, at St. John the Evangelist Church parish hall. The meeting occurs, from 10 to 12 noon, and will meet the first and third Friday of the month. The parish hall has a capacity for 250 people and there is plenty of parking spaces in the parking lot and on the street. Around the perimeter of the parish hall are rooms to allow us to have focused network groups or for any other purpose we need. We chose the first and third Friday to allow everyone to attend the Acton Networking Group or any other networking group, if they wanted, on the Friday we do not meet.

We will maintain our close affiliation with Acton Networkers by using the same list-server to share information between the groups. Any e-mails specific to the Hopkinton Networking Group (HNG) will be indicated in the subject line either by "Hopkinton Networking Group" or "HNG"; this way anyone attending these meetings will know the e-mail is intended for them.

We will follow the following Agenda items:
Welcome
Landings (with doughnuts)
Announcements
New member introductions
Needs and Leads
Speaker(s), Workshop, or Focus Group
Cleanup

For those new members who give their introductions, this is what we would like to know:
Name
Skills and Value Statement
Where have you been?
Where are you going?
Your title
Your target companies
Geography of search
Name and e-mail address
If anyone wants to join our team, please let one of us know; we could always use the extra help and input for ideas.

Directions:
Take Rt. 495 North/South and get off Exit 21A. Go through three traffic lights. Colella's Supermarket is on the right at the third traffic light. The first street after the third traffic light is Church Street, take a right turn. The church is on the right. Go around to the left of the parking lot and go into the side entrance of the parish hall.

Depending upon where you live, perhaps you may want to use Mapquest for a more direct route. The address of the church is:
St. John the Evangelist
20 Church Street
Hopkinton, MA 01748

Regards,

Hopkinton Networkers Group (HNG) Coordinators:
Jim Lane - JDlane58@hotmail.com
Sandra Cipriani - sandraopps@comcast.net
Steven Hakar - hakar4@hotmail.comm
Gil Krispien - g.krispien@verizon.net
Sandra Lowther - sandy_lowther@charter.net
Barbara McKee - barb6635@comcast.net
Ralph Sabatino - ralphsabatino@ymail.com
Salpi Sarafian - ssarafian@rcn.com
Marilyn Johnson

Hopkinton Networking Group: “Network Your Way into the Hidden Job Market”

The agenda for this Friday's Hopkinton Networkers Group (HNG) meeting will be featured by our speaker, Joellyn Wittenstein Schwerdlin. The facilitator for this week will be Ralph Sabatino. We will devote the first hour, from 10 to 11 AM to the following agenda: Welcome, Landings, Announcements, New Member Intros, and Needs & Leads. Please arrive early, so we can make every effort to start on time. In the second hour, Joellyn will speak about "Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market".

Speaker Topic: “Network Your Way into the Hidden Job Market”

Landing an ideal career position in today’s competitive labor market requires more effort than chasing “openings” and “vacancies,” posting résumés on job boards, filling out online applications -- and waiting for responses that may never come.

In this seminar, you will learn how to break this dead-end “click and pray” cycle, by understanding what the hidden job market really is and how to effectively network your way into it. Even if you’ve attempted job-search networking without much success, this program will help you get back on track.

Material covered includes:

• The true definition of “the hidden job market;”
• The four stages of a job opening and the truths about job postings;
• What job-search networking is –- and what it isn’t;
• Common mistakes people make in job-search networking situations -- and how to avoid them;
• The importance of having a job-search plan in place before reaching out to your networking contacts;
• How to strategically build a contact list to reach hiring decision makers;

And much more!

About Joellyn Wittenstein Schwerdlin

Joellyn Wittenstein Schwerdlinis a Certified Career Management Coach who runs a private career coaching practice serving executives, managers and professionals in career transition. Since 1991, Joellyn has helped countless clients find perfect career paths which are fun, fulfilling and financially-rewarding.

Joellyn has been an active contributor of sample resumes, cover letters, and career-related pieces which are featured in many publications, most recently: Gallery of Best Resumes, 5th Edition (2011); Cover Letters for Dummies (2009); and Job Search Bloopers (2008). She has also written articles for the Worcester Business Journal and has been quoted as a career expert in articles published in the d.b.a. (Worcester Telegram & Gazette supplement) and The Chicago Tribune.

Prior to her work as a career coach, Joellyn earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Illinois, freelanced as a professional singer, and held administrative positions across multiple industry sectors, including nearly two years in the HR department of a social service agency.


Schedule for HNG Meetings:

October 21, 2011 Hari Narayanan "Check List for Being JOB READY"
November 4, 2011 Anne Crawford "Is Your Elevator Speech Getting You to the Next Level"
November 18, 2011
December 2, 2011
December 16, 2011
*** HAPPY NEW YEAR ****
January 20, 2012 Clare Harlow " People Reading with DiSC"



General Information:

The networking group meets in Hopkinton, at St. John the Evangelist Church parish hall. The meeting occurs, from 10 to 12 noon, and will meet the first and third Friday of the month. The parish hall has a capacity for 250 people and there is plenty of parking spaces in the parking lot.

Directions:
Take Rt. 495 North/South and get off Exit 21A. Go through three traffic lights. Colella's Supermarket is on the right at the third traffic light. The first street after the third traffic light is Church Street, take a right turn. The church is on the right. Go around to the left of the parking lot and go into the side entrance of the parish hall.

Depending upon where you live, perhaps you may want to use Mapquest/Google for a more direct route. The address of the church is:
St. John the Evangelist
20 Church Street
Hopkinton, MA 01748

Green Jobs by the Numbers

Sent to you by Steve Sherlock via Google Reader:

Green Jobs by the Numbers

via Center for American Progress by Susan Lyon on 10/2/11

There's one thing we know for certain about green jobs: They are real, well-paid, and growing. The jobs that make up the clean energy economy are on the rise when jobs in many other sectors are slipping away or moving overseas. With 14 million unemployed Americans, they are a sign of hope in an otherwise stagnant economy.

In terms of sheer growth, the clean tech sector glows especially brightly. The July 2011 report "Sizing the Clean Economy" from the Brookings Institution and Battelle's Technology Partnership Practice makes clear that emerging clean tech sectors saw explosive growth in recent years.

In particular, the clean economy sector focused on clean energy—especially wind, solar, fuel cell, smart grid, biofuel, and battery companies—grew far more quickly than the economy as a whole. The Brookings report slices and dices the data in a number of ways. But most striking is the major jobs growth in clean energy between 2003 and 2010: Solar thermal and wind grew by 18.4 percent and 14.9 percent, respectively.

This chart breaks down the top 10 of these specific clean technology industries in terms of their annual average percent change in jobs from 2003 to 2010:

Segments with initially very few jobs saw particularly dramatic change over time, though the total jobs in the segment may still be much smaller than in others with a larger baseline.
This chart breaks them down in terms of absolute change in jobs:

Some other facts and figures you should know about green jobs and the clean energy economy:

• There are currently 2.7 million jobs in the "clean economy," broadly defined to include both mature and emerging industries across the clean tech, transit, conservation, waste, agriculture, and other clean sectors.
• The clean economy as a whole—not just the clean tech sectors discussed above—grew by 8.3 percent from 2008 to 2009, in the depths of the recession. This was almost double what the overall economy grew during those years. This is in large part thanks to the Recovery Act.
• Median wages are 13 percent higher in green energy careers than the economy average.
• Three separate programs for energy efficiency retrofits employed almost 25,000 Americans in three months since earlier this year. The Weatherization Assistance Program, Energy Efficiency Block Grant Program, and State Energy Programs collectively upgraded over half a million buildings since they began to ramp up earlier this year. These programs mainly hired construction workers, a key point during a time of particularly heavy unemployment in the construction sector.

In sum, the clean economy has continued to grow even while industries across America have had to lay off workers or close up shop. Instead of dancing on the grave of those few clean energy companies that do not make it, we need to support the smart growth policies and investments that can create more green jobs while strengthening our greater economy.
Kate Gordon is Vice President for Energy Policy, Susan Lyon is Special Assistant for Energy Policy, and Matthew Kasper is an intern with the Energy team at American Progress.
See also:

• Top 10 Reasons Why Green Jobs Are Vital to Our Economy
• Climate Progress: Getting the Facts Straight on Green Jobs

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