Workforce 3One

Transcript of Podcast

Job Clubs, part 1

Transcript by Noble Transcription Services Murrieta, CA KATHLEEN DORSEY: Hello. I'm Kathleen Dorsey, coordinator for technical assistance and training for the Senior Community Service Employment Program at the national office of the Department of Labor. This podcast will be on Job Clubs, and this is part one of that podcast.

My guest today is Paul Magnus, vice president of workforce development at Mature Services in Akron, Ohio. Thank you, Paul, for agreeing to this interview.

PAUL MAGNUS: You're quite welcome.

MS. DORSEY: And thank you to our listeners for their attendance.

OK, Paul. Let's get started. Tell me what is Jobs Club?

MR. MAGNUS: Well, Job Clubs actually have been around for a very long time, since the early to mid '70s. And Job Club is a service where you're providing education and training on job search techniques, but you're also combining that with the peer support. So it's done in a group of job seekers that support each other through the process of job search.

MS. DORSEY: OK. So who participates in Job Club?

MR. MAGNUS: We like to have the groups of job seekers be older workers so they have that in common with their job search patterns and what they're looking for. And they're individuals that have been out of work for a while, and the traditional methods haven't worked. They get frustrated with job search. They try to find jobs and they get rejected and they're looking for a new way to approach the job search process.

MS. DORSEY: OK. So at what point does a SESEP participant enter into job club?

MR. MAGNUS: Primarily it's what we call our near job ready. They've participated in their SESEP community work experience assignment for a while, maybe gained some new skills and a little bit of confidence and they have some – now, they have some supervisors that are willing to give them some references for the work they've done, and they're ready to kind of make that next move. And it depends on how long it takes them to gain those skills. Really depends on that individual plan, but I guess the sweet spot would be for an SESEP participant would be somewhere between six months and a year after the service started.

MS. DORSEY: OK. So letting them get some experience and some work activity under their belt before they go into job club?

MR. MAGNUS: Absolutely.

MS. DORSEY: And approximately how many people do you have in a job club at a time?

MR. MAGNUS: Well, the ideal – ideally, you want to have some small group activity. So the ideal is from 5 to 15. If it's less than 5, you don't get quite the interaction and group dynamics, and if it gets over 15, it gets a little unruly.

Podcast: Job Clubs, part 1 Page 2 of 4 MS. DORSEY: That makes sense. And how often do you operate a job club?

MR. MAGNUS: Well, we do our job clubs about once a month, depending on the client flow and how many people are interested. And it gives us a chance to do a very solid two-week job club and then have some time before the next one starts. And then, meanwhile, once they complete the job club, they get some follow-up counseling, follow-up networking groups that they meet periodically amongst themselves, and they continue their job search.

MS. DORSEY: And what do you see as the primary benefit to participants?

MR. MAGNUS: Well, we've done some studies on the – on our older worker job clubs. In fact we're in the middle of a longitudinal study, and one of the things that really we found that is the most important impact of it is the confidence that they build throughout the process of Job Club.

When they come in, they really – like I say, they're kind of at their whit's end. They've tried different things, and very typically people in job search, they are very reactive in the way they look for work. They wait for ads to be posted, whether it's online or whether it's in a newspaper or maybe on a flyer or something like that, and they kind of wait for something to happen. But what – the biggest benefit of the job club approach is it teaches people how to find jobs that are not advertised, how to find some that aren't in the paper.

For example, we had an interesting illustration of this. We had an individual in our job club in Akron, and he had worked – he had a good driving record and he had worked for a while before as a courier but he had not found any work for a while. And he was just constantly just hitting dead ends, and oftentimes when there was an opening, there were just so many other people applying. So he got to thinking about this hidden jobs market approach, and we do a lot of work with teaching people how to target and identify companies that may be hiring, not necessarily ones that have a current position but ones that may be hiring.

And this is an idea he came up with himself. He went and he invested six hours of a day and he parked at a major medical center wellness center and he was interested, remember, in being a courier. And he parked in the visitor's parking lot and he took notes of every delivery truck that came up. And he saw – what he ended up at the end of the day was a list of 26 courier companies that deliver to the healthcare system. And within two weeks he was working because he went back to the job club, and we taught him how to target and identify the companies and he approached them from a totally different perspective.

MS. DORSEY: It also sounds like he was really motivated. If he spent that amount of time just watching and seeing what the services were, then he really wanted to get a job, didn't he?

MR. MAGNUS: Right. And the traditional approaches to apply for hundreds of jobs and then wait to hear something, it's actually better to target and identify hundreds of companies and then zero in on the ones that you think have some potential there. And that's exactly what he did, and of course that also speaks well of the other job seekers because then they'll see something like that and they'll get inspired by it.

Podcast: Job Clubs, part 1 Page 3 of 4 So not only do you have the support, but you also have the – kind of the inspiration and hope that you get when somebody else gets some success like that. That actually raises the level for everyone. So you get that whole peer support because there will be rejection in a job search. There's no doubt about that, but it also can inspire people as well.

MS. DORSEY: So do they share information then at the job club about job openings or networking kind of opportunities?

MR. MAGNUS: Well, there's a lot of content in the job club because remember many of these individuals that are older workers haven't had to look for work for a while. They might have worked with contacting employers in the past but maybe when there used to be gatekeepers or live receptionists, and it's a totally different environment now with voicemail systems. You have to have strategies for voicemail. You have to be able to do that 17-second commercial and then follow it up with an approach that might involve some e-mail or even working with social networking to put a message on someone's wall. We actually had someone from our Young Sounds project that got an interview that way just the other week.

MS. DORSEY: Great.

MR. MAGNUS: So there's a lot of new strategies that involve – and of course getting a really good resume – and I like to see resumes that are people learn how to construct a proper resume. I don't – because I can spot a resume a mile away that was done on a template at the local One- Stop or something like that where they're just kind of filling in the blanks or answering questions and then it spits out a resume. It's much better to have a really custom-made resume and a really good cover letter that complements that resume.

So that's a big part of it as well, and then you have the whole interviewing process. And then in job clubs it's good because most job clubs – and ours included – will videotape them so they can see how they come across to that employers. And we go into body language and the non-verbal communication clues that they're giving to employers and how well are they projecting not only their skills but their values and their work values and their work ethics. So being an older worker doesn't have to be a negative thing. It can actually be a positive experience.

MS. DORSEY: Right. Be sure and join us for part two of this podcast.

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