KCEOC Visit

Today Carla and Caroline visited Shanna, Stephen, and Missy in Barbourville at the KCEOC office where their agency was holding a community open house. We enjoyed touring the office, doing some shopping at the KCEOC Community Craft Store, and eating Stephen's delicious soup. Yum!

Daniel Boone Visit

Today, Carla and Caroline visited the Daniel Boone Community Action Agency. We had no idea that the office was really on top of the mountain, lord knows how many feet above sea level. What a view though! And a lovely facility that was been completely remodeled. It was great to see Terrina, Phillip, Linda, JoAnn, Alesia, Linda, and Shirley. In our tour of Clay county we saw Red Bird Rock and Oneida Baptist Institute as well as some beautiful country. We know you are all excited about the new recycling center that will bring many jobs to your region.

Assessment Ideas

As GCDFs, we are always on the lookout for new assessment tools. Here is a link that certainly gave me a few new tools.

http://www.quintcareers.com/online_assessment_review.html

Northeast Visit

Carla and Caroline visited Brenda, Becky T., Bonnie, Stephanie, Missy, Becky R. this week at Northeast. Thanks for your wonderful hospitality and the delicious homemade pies from the Truck Stop featured on the Food Network. The community driving tour of Olive Hill and Grayson featured the two murals that youth worked on last summer and Carter Caves state park. Such a beautiful time of your in Kentucky.

NCDA Grad School Scholarships

The NBCC Foundation is offering grad school scholarships. Please note there is a rural area category. EKU and Lindey Wilson both have CACREP approved programs. For more information, go to:

www.nbccf.org/programs

November 1, 2009 early review deadline.

O*NET Career Values Inventory

During October's training, we broke into small groups administered and reviewed the O*NET Career Values Inventory published by JIST. Some liked the assessment and thought that it would benefit their population, others did not. As a general rule, it is a good idea to use multiple assessments to help our clients with career exploration and not rely solely upon the results of just one tool. If you would like to review the Administrator's Guide it is available on the JIST website.

LKLP Agency Visit

Carla and Caroline visited the LKLP office this week and got to see where Lynn, Theresa, Jack, Tina, Marsha, Allison, Mona, Donna, Brandon, and Brian work. In a few more months, they will be moving to a new facility. They served a delicious potluck lunch. YUM!!! Attending a LKLP Community Action Agengy board meeting and conducting a three hour training on "Working with Challenging Popultions" at Hazard Community and Technical College was also part of the trip. Keep up the good work.

Hot Jobs

Although as GCDFs we certainly encourage clients to focus on their interests, skills, personality type, and abilities as primary factors in their job search or career transitions it is helpful for us to be aware of labor market trends. JobBait is one such tool.

Notice the yellow (Hotspots), green (growing faster than the workforce),and red (declining) color coding of industries by state. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was used in the analysis.

BEGIN A JOB CLUB – NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT

If you are like many career development professionals across the country, the current recession and record unemployment rates are causing your calendar to be busier than ever. In an effort to be most efficient and help record numbers of people, Job Clubs should be revisited. In the early 90’s, the poor economy and massive layoffs of mid to late-career professionals brought a new wave of Job Clubs. If you have been in the field for over 15 years, perhaps you led such groups. The following is a review of formats and some ideas for job club logistics.

Consider partnering
In an effort to reach out, career professionals may consider partnering with a church, organization experiencing massive layoffs, or University Alumni club. Partnering not only brings diversity to the group, but different perspectives, contacts, and job leads. Many organizations are willing to offer free meeting space, refreshments, and event advertising.

Basic Formats
Job clubs usually meet on a weekly or biweekly basis for anywhere from one to two hours. At the beginning of each session, it is prudent to discuss some ground keeping rules and confidentiality guidelines. Ground keeping guidelines may include let everyone have the opportunity to speak, disagree respectfully, remain professional and supportive of others in the group etc. As for confidentiality, attendees are asked not to share personal or sensitive information outside of the group etc.

Next, allow time for introductions and to practice 30-second commercials. As simple as they seem, 30-second commercials are still an area where most clients struggle. Regular practice will certainly pay off with networking efforts and in the interview process. Follow with a short job search related speaker or topic of focus. Guest speakers could include members of the community with knowledge of job search strategies, interviewing techniques, and hiring practices. Club participants could even sign-up in advance to research and share tips on an aspect of the job search. At some point in the meeting, allow time for each participant to share a job search highlight or some good news from the previous week and offer any leads to others in the group. This would also be a good time for attendees to ask for specific industry or employer contacts or leads. Lastly each client will publicly state a goal for the week such as number of resumes to submit, contacts to make etc.

As a facilitator, it is important to keep the group environment positive and encouraging. Facilitators should also develop a list of referral resources in case the need arises (i.e. One Stop Job Centers, food banks, financial or psychological counseling services, etc.)

With the dismal economy and so many people out of work, consider using this time as an opportunity to provide a beneficial and much appreciated community service and an opportunity to showcase your relevant knowledge and expertise.

Big Sandy

Yesterday Carla and Caroline spent the day in Paintsville and Prestonsburg. So nice to see Valerie, Linda, Zeth, Reva, Sandy G., and Sandy. C. and their places of work. During lunch there was practically an entire GCDF reunion at Billy Ray's. The chicken dumplings were awesome! The afternoon provided a tour of Floyd county and the opportunity to see many for the communities where our GCDFs work.

Gateway

Today Carla and Caroline traveled to West Liberty and met with Sidney and Karen. Their lovely building sits on top of a hill across the parking lot from one of MSU's extended campus sites. A highlight of the day was seeing sorgham being made at a local micro enterprise.

Bell-Whitley Visit

Yesterday Carla and Caroline visited our GCDFs at the Bell-Whitley Community Action Agency (Pam, Miranda, Janet, Sandy H., and Rudelle). How exciting to see your wonderful new offices! We can't imagine how beautiful your area will be in a few weeks with the fall color. In the afternoon, Janet and Sandy competently administered the Colors assessment that they used with their youth this summer. What color(s) do you think we are???

Update on Site Visits

Carla and Caroline enjoyed spending today in Harlan, Kentucky with Celia, Chris and Flora as part of their first GCDF fall site visits. Harlan GCDF colleagues administered and interpreted JobFit to Carla and Caroline in an excellent way. It was great to visit the Harlan office and see where they work.

LinkedIn Group for CDFs

Career Development Facilitators have recently started a group on LinkedIn.com. To join, simply go to your LinkedIn account and search for "Career Development Facilitators" under Groups. Start a discussion or share comments.

How Twitter Will Change Our Lives

Do you find yourself asking "What's the big deal about Twitter"? A recent Time CNN article gave some examples of how the Twitter phenomenon is changing our lives through news and opinions, searching, and advertising. First,Twitter offers real time chatter on any topic imaginable by offering live searches. Since we tend to follow people that we know, trust, or respect, many Twitter users are finding this source of information more reputable than Google searches. Could this be the future way we get our daily news? Second, Twitter is being used as a pointing or link sharing device by pointing to longer articles, posts, videos, websites etc. Twitter is a quick, inexpensive, easy way to market and spread the word. In the next few months, notice how more and more businesses are using Twitter.

Job Search Strategies

-Trying to find your supervisor from a job ten years ago where you made an outstanding contribution?
-Wish you could find a contact at XYZ company before you submit a resume and cover letter?
-Wanting to learn more about the career background of the person who will be interviewing you next week?

These are some of the reasons job seekers are choosing to utilize social networking job search tools like LinkedIn.com. Although our clients can’t count on simply filling out a profile and waiting for employers to find them, tools such as LinkedIn can help aid their job search in the above ways.

Demographics of Social Networking Tools

Congratulations to our latest GCDF class that graduated last weekend. Way to go! Your colleagues are great sources of information and wonderful contacts with whom you can network.

The past few months in training we have been talking about the rise of Twitter in the job search and wouldn't it be interesting to know more about the user demographics. See the link below for such a study.

http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/2008-social-network-analysis-report/

Free O*NET Training

O*NET Webinars are live, one-hour training sessions that you can attend from any computer with an Internet connection! These Webinars offer you a fast, easy, and efficient way to learn more about O*NET, WIA, Human Resources, Education, and other workforce-related topics.

April 24 Training
Using O*NET to Connect the Unemployed to High Growth and In-Demand Occupations

http://www.onetacademy.com/

Interview Closing Statements

Clinching the Interview By Using A Closing Statement

Clients have recently experienced interview success by using the following strategy. When the interview is coming to a close, ask the interviewer the following “May I have permission to make a closing statement?” Rarely will you be denied. Next thank them for their time and consideration. Then, share three of your most relevant strengths for the position. Another strategy is when asked if you have any questions or as the interview is nearing the end, pose this question to the recruiter, “Based on our initial interview, do you perceive anything that would prevent me from performing well in your organization?” or “Now that you know a little more about my background, education and experience, is there anything that would prevent you from extending an offer or hiring me?” The beauty of this strategy is that it allows you to address any concerns the interviewer may have before you walk out the door.

Career Span, Inc. Launches Blog

Here is the sister blog to our GCDF blog:

www.mastercareercounselor.blogspot.com

Training Dates

Please note that the June 4-5, 2010 GCDF Summit has been postponed. When it has been rescheduled, we will let you know.

LinkedIn & the Job Search

Here's a great article on using LinkedIn for your job search.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/02/10-ways-to-use.html

Hot Jobs Survey

We thought that you would be interested to see that Career Counselor made a Top 10 Hot Jobs list for 2009. This survey was conducted by PayScale.com

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-10_hot_professions_for_2009-633

John Holland's Death

We were sad to learn that one of our favorite career theorist, John Holland, passed away on November 27, 2008. A detailed biography on his many contributions to our field can be found in the 2008 APA Scientific Contribution Awards Program

http://data.memberclicks.com/site/macda/JLH2008Award.pdf