Job club fights on with laughter, song

By Kristina Yates
CNN Producer

NORTH WOODMERE, New York (CNN) — “Are you ready? Are you ready? Let’s get it on!” screams the guy at the podium. It feels like fight night, and while this isn’t a boxing match, people aren’t pulling punches, either.

“You are unique and you are a warrior. Get up and move forward. Go after that job!” says Chris Fidis, co-founder of the Long Island Breakfast Club. Landing a job is the ultimate prize here, but the way the club goes about it is far from conventional.

“Go to a regular job fair, and most of those meetings are very stuffy and they’re very narrow-minded, and they want you to feel, ‘OK, this is what you did wrong.’ It makes you feel like you have to climb a mountain. Here, you don’t have to climb a mountain, just reinvent yourself,” Fidis says.

Jim Altamore is the perfect example. He works as a construction manager, but during a previous job lull, he decided to follow his true passion for singing and turned his hobby into a money-maker.

As he tells the audience about his journey, he concludes his speech by singing a few notes of Frank Sinatra’s “I’ve Got the World on a String.” The crowd loves it. Watch Altamore belt out a few notes »

That’s when club founder Valentina Janek takes the podium: “Are you seriously thinking about the job you don’t have right now? That’s what this club does!” The crowd cheers some more.

The idea for the club was born when Janek lost her job nearly five years ago. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, she met with people who were in the same boat — middle-aged and unemployed.

“We were so experienced that we felt that we were a product of age discrimination and we couldn’t get beyond the brick wall,” she says. “There were some days where we needed a lot of support from each other.”

They found support from each other — but not from the owner of the diner where the small group regularly met for 10 months.

“One day, the diner owner came up to us and said, ‘You come here often and you only buy coffee and doughnuts, and you don’t spend enough money, and I need the diner,’ ” Janek says. “So we said we’re going to turn this into a positive, and we left. We went out into the parking lot, and we were all laughing.”

That was three years ago. The unique approach of networking, counseling, support and laughter has helped grow the club to 190 members; 87 of them have found jobs.

The club now meets at The Bristal, a retirement home in North Woodmere, New York, and members are welcome there. The monthly meetings always start with breakfast and conversations. Common sounds reverberate through the room: “I’m trying to reinvent myself and move forward.” “I went on the interview.” “I’m looking for a job.”

Maryellen Shpak is among those still looking. “Because the stock market took such a hit, the amount of income that we thought we were going to get was a lot less,” she says.

The losses forced her out of early retirement at 53 to start working again — or so she thought.

“There are no jobs,” she says. So she connected with the Breakfast Club. Although she is still looking for work, the club and its members have helped her stay positive.

“You just get involved with people who are in your situation, and people who were in your situation and have become successful.”

Back at The Bristal, members have moved on from coffee and scones and are listening to the featured speaker, a psychotherapist, who tells the crowd how to navigate through the turbulent economy. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” she says.

Past speakers include a monk-turned-business guru and a comedian. “He turned our interview stories into jokes, and everybody laughed. That’s healthy,” says Janek.

“We brought in somebody that can teach us a new skill as in wine tasting. We taught everyone how to sip, sniff and swirl for 20 minutes. That was enlightening, and what we try to tell people is, ‘Now that you’re unemployed, do something that you’ve never tried before, and you just might like it.’

“Is it going to be your job forever? Absolutely not, but you will meet new people and you will learn new things. And one of our main missions is to keep people open to new things; you never know what could happen” she says.

The club even has a nonhuman member — Oopsie, a 10-year-old horse.

“We came across this organization founded by Valentina, and we were in a growing stage, so we needed to hire some people,” says Alex Jacobson, who owns Oopsie and Lakewood Stables in West Hempstead, New York.

Jacobson was so impressed with the club that he decided to donate a horse lease to its members.

“It will allow their members to go out for a trail ride and just clear their head. It gives them the energy to go back out there and face the challenges ahead,” he says. “Puts a smile on their face.”

Let’s talk about how the current economic situation is helping or hurting you

Hello SixDegrees members! I’d like to talk about how the current economic crisis is helping or hurting us. As the founder of SixDegrees I’m going to share my thoughts first. To put it simply, the economy is killin’ me! I am an HR professional by day. I am a Staffing guru/Executive Recruiter with over 15 years of experience. Due to this wonderful economy no one is hiring, so consequently they don’t need me or don’t want to spend extra dollars to find the talent they might need.

So what’s a skilled person to do? What is a college educated person to do? What is graduate school educated person with experience to do? I have considered going back to school, Again to get my PhD. Maybe another advanced degree would help? Maybe I should just become a professor? You can never have too many good teachers, right? It’s a recession proof job, right? Well, easier said than done. If I decide to go back to school it’s going to cost me quite a bit and take a few years. But a professor’s schedule would be nice!

I’m also considering becoming a Career Coach. A Career Coach helps individuals make career decisions. Heck, I’ve done that for years as an Executive Recruiter and haven’t been paid for it! I spend countless hours talking to candidates and companies about the careers. With candidates, we talk about their past career and then about what may be appealing to them in the future. My famous, “Have, Have, Have” question. “Thinking of what you have now in your career, what would you like to have that you don’t already have?” the “Have” corresponds to whatever you want more of; compensation, autonomy, a great team of employees, lots of vacation time, Whatever!

When I counsel employers I assess their needs as well as short and long term goals of the company. I also assess the department that is looking for additional talent. Does this department have a lot of turnover? why? How many candidates do you need? Why? What kind of culture does your company have and what type of person would be a good fit? These are the kinds of questions I ask on a daily basis so I think becoming a Career coach might be an avenue I should check in to further. the only problem is, how do I get the attention of employers and candidates to let me work with them? and how much should I charge?

Lastly, I am considering the idea of getting my Mediation certification. What a mediator does is resolve conflict. People engage a mediator instead of an attorney. It costs a lot less and usually doesn’t get ugly. The mediator becomes the objective third party who helps resolve issues ranging from employee disputes to contract negotiations. This might be a good avenue for me as well. There is a relatively short mediation class and the cost isn’t too bad. I will follow this one up and let you know how it goes.

I’d love to hear from all of you SixDegrees members who are trying to make it. Help me make my mind up. I am open to suggestions. In the meantime, if anyone out there needs help putting together their resume let me know. I can oblidge for a nominal fee. Best of luck to you all out there!

Lauren

SixDegrees on Top 40 list of African American Groups on LinkedIn

Top 40 African-American focused groups on LinkedIn
Posted by Brian McClellan on August 8, 2008 at 11:30am
View Brian McClellan’s blog
Here are all of the African-American focused groups I could find on LinkedIn with 50 members or more as of 8/4/08. There are two interesting notes here. First, you will see that there are two and even three groups representing the same entity in some cases. I have included the name of the group leader in parentheses, so you can distinguish between the groups. Second, there are many prominent African-American organizations that do not have groups or have very small ones. For example, the 100 Black Men only four that I could find LinkedIn groups, all with less than 10 members.

If you have an interest in any of these groups, please seek to them. Joining these groups will strengthen them as well as extend your own personal reach. Please let me know if you know of any African-American focused groups on LinkedIn with more than 50 members that I have omitted. Also, if you belong to an organization which should have a group but does not, be the one to start one! In order to help each other, we have to find each other. I hope you will use this list to find other Success Minded African Americans.

Also, please forward the link to this list to everyone in your network. We are a stronger people in larger numbers!

http://successminded.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2160431%3ABlogP…

This list has also been updated to include LinkedIn groups for HBCUs which do not have “Black” or African-American” in their LinkedIn descriptions.

http://successminded.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2160431%3ABlogP…

LinkedIn groups with more than 500 members
Alpha Kappa Alpha Network (Lisa Marie Glover)
National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) (Brian Bloomfield)
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity – Linked (RA Vernon)
Success Minded African Americans (Brian McClellan)
Alpha Phi Alpha Network (Terrance Dennis)
BPDA – Black Data Processor Assoc. (Wayne Hicks)
The National Association of Black Sports Professionals (John Shumate)

LinkedIn groups with between 400-500 members
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. (Denitia Fleming)
Black Enterprise (Monique Myles)

LinkedIn groups with between 200-400 members
National Association of Black Journalists (Kurt Hogan)
National Association of Multicultural Media Executives (NAMME) (Michelle Duke)

LinkedIn groups with between 100-200 members
NBMBA Association (Mothusi Pahl)
Empowered Black Women (Adrienne Graham)
Delta SigmaTheta – Omega Psi Phi Network (Susie Johnson)
National Society of Black Engineers (Joseph Banda)
Black Executive Network (Davrick Liles)
NAAAHR – National Association of African Americans in Human Resources (William Chichester)
National Bar Association (Paul J. Robertson)
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. (Brian DeShields)
Grambling Alumni Group (Lee Fuller)
Kellogg Black Alumni (Kellogg School of Management) (Clayton Virgil)
Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization (Nicolette Gordon (Battle))
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated (Phil Eugenio)
National Panhellenic Council (Kurt Hogan)
2009 National Organization of Minority Architects Conference (Richey Madison)
Nupes in Media (Kurt Hogan)
NSBE-AE (Alumni Extension) (Kerry Maybank)
Black Alumni Network of University of Illinois at Urbana (Kevin McFall)

LinkedIn groups with between 50-100 members
NABA (National Association of Black Accountants) (Christina Lewis)
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated (J.H. Bell)
Six Degrees, A Diversity Talent Network (Lauren Burke Bennett)
Men of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. (Shawn Harris)
Intel-African American Leadership Council (Eghosa Omoigui )
UR Black Alumni Association (UR BAA) (Lisa Norwood)
National Black Public Relations Society (Kevin Davis)
Black Enterprise Networked ( Jamar Malone)
National Urban League Young Professionals Network (William Chichester)
International Black Women’s Collaborative (Deena Pierott )
Metropolitan Board of the Chicago Urban League (J. Nicole Knox)
NC State University Black Alumni Society (Jerome Lofton)
National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) (David Aderonpe)
GMI/Kettering Black Alumni (Shanika Hurst)
Tags: african-american, black, groups, linkedin, networking
Share

SixDegrees to create SixDegrees Business Directory

SixDegrees is going to create a business directory, The SixDegrees Business Directory!
The directory will include all of the SixDegrees members from the main website, Ning site, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. So far we are well over 300 members! This is a great opportunity to promote yourself or your business.

The directory will be available to search online via member access and in print form. The directory will include Las Vegas professionals by industry. Industries include; Gaming/Hospitality, Healthcare, Finance, Construction, Real Estate, Retail and Entrepreneurs.

Listings will include Name, Business Name, Contact information and Email. If you would like to promote your business and include an advertisement, please contact Lauren (lauren@sixdegrees-lv.com) for pricing rates.

What do you need to do? If you have Joined the network, please make sure that your information is correct. If you have not Joined the network at the main website, , click on the link and join. If you would not like to be included please let us know. We can be reached via email at
lauren@SixDegrees-lv.com.

Maybe the cover will look like this?

SixDegrees Business Directory

Social Networking and Your Job: Lessons from the “Cisco Fatty”

Staying Positive (and sane) While Job Searching

Cocktails & Connections Events

SEE EVENTS PAGE FOR THE LATEST

COCKTAILS & CONNECTIONS EVENTS