Networking Group meeting - Friday, Nov 16 - Working with Contract Agencies

Hello Everyone,

The agenda for this Friday's Hopkinton Networkers Group (HNG) meeting will be featured by our speaker, Cheryl Landes. The facilitator for this week will be Sandra Cipriani. 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, Cheryl will talk about "Working with Contract Agencies."

Working with Contract Agencies

Today more jobs are becoming project-based or on contracts through placement agencies that can range from one month to a year or more. Cheryl Landes, a full-time contract technical writer, will provide tips on how to work with agencies that place us on temporary assignments. She will also describe the current climate at the agencies and how job seekers can navigate this intricate maze so their resumes will be noticed and presented to the hiring clients.

These topics will be covered during this presentation:
* The state of contracting
* Advantages and disadvantages of contracting
* Types of agency contracts
* Methods for contacting agencies
* Submitting resumes
* Working with recruiters
* Interviews
* Accepting assignments
* Working conditions

About Cheryl Landes

Cheryl Landes, an award-winning technical writer, Society for Technical Communication (STC) Fellow, and Certified Professional Communicator through the Association for Women in Communications Matrix Foundation, is the founder and owner of Tabby Cat Communications in Seattle. She has more than 22 years of experience as a technical writer and indexer in several industries: computer software, HVAC/energy savings, marine transportation, manufacturing, retail, and the trade press. An active member of STC and the American Society for Indexing (ASI) on the chapter and national levels, Cheryl speaks frequently at STC and ASI meetings throughout the United States and Canada. She is also the author of two handbooks on digital indexing in MadCap Flare and Adobe FrameMaker, and more than 100 articles and three books on Northwest travel and history.

Recap of HNG Meeting of November 2, 2012:

Our 87th meeting of HNG had 33 people, this is 17 more than the previous meeting and 3 signed the New Member list. William Lam was our facilitator. There were three introduction speeches.

We had two landings:
Judy Decasse Contract position at Metro West Healthcare Hospice as a receptionist
Charles Recchia Principal Electrical Engineer at Raytheon

We had a speaker, Jen Vondenbrink, who talked about "LinkedIn for Your Job Search: Building Quality Business Relationships Online." Jen discussed how to collect numbers of connections and helped you understand how to use LinkedIn as a tool through your job search and beyond to build long lasting relationships.

Schedule for HNG Meetings:
December 7, 2012 TBD
December 21, 2012 Anne Crawford "Elevator Speech"

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:

Sandra Cipriani sandraopps@comcast.net
Gil Krispien g.krispien@verizon.net
William Lam wmlam508@yahoo.com
Barbara McKee barb6635@comcast.net
Vincent Rocheleau vrocheleau@hotmail.com
Salpi Sarafian ssarafian@rcn.com