It’s no secret that these are tough times and that it’s hard to get a job. So we at Jobnob were thinking about what we could do to play our part in making things better. Because we are invovled with jobs and careers, we’ve been talking to a lot of unemployed people lately and we noticed that we kept hearing the same thing over and over again. People who have been out of work for a month or more have searched all the online job boards and submitted resumes. They’ve worked their personal and professional networks. They’ve spent hour after hour, day after day trying to track down leads on new jobs. But after a certain point, they still haven’t gotten a job (let alone an interview) and they aren’t sure what else to do. And need we mention that looking for a job is a lonely business. It can be depressing to send off resumes and never get an answer back. And while at the beginning of a job search you can fill your days, it’s hard after you’ve been looking for a few months to do that every day all day. And there is the mounting fear that the white space on your resume since your last job is growing larger and larger. If you finally make it to an interview and the interviewer says “What have you been doing since your last job?” you can’t exactly answer “Looking for a job, dumb ass!”. So what is an unemployed person to do?
Enter the Jobnob Happy Hour! This Thursday, May 7th at 5:00pm at District (216 Townsend, SOMA) we are having a Jobnob Networking Happy Hour to bring together unemployed people in the Bay Area with start ups. See in this economy, it’s not just the job seekers who are having a rough time- so are the start ups. It’s particularly hard to get funding right now which means that many start ups are either cash strapped or are just really conserving cash. That makes it very hard to hire people to do all of the work that needs to get done (and of course there is a lot of work!). So we thought that we would bring these two groups of people in need together and see if we could benefit everyone. So what’s the deal? The start ups are going to buy job seekers drinks and the job seekers are going with the understanding that they are willing to donate at least 5 hours a week to a start up. So come and have a glass of wine and jobnob with other Bay Area start ups and job seekers. Please RSVP online if you are coming at www.jobnob.com/happy-hour
So why would an educated, experienced job seeker want to work for free? Well, first of all, there’s that issue of the white space on a person’s resume. It really is hard to explain to an interview what you’ve been doing, and if someone is working with a start up then they can keep their resume up to date and hopefully gain some skills and learn something in the process. Also it helps to grow their network and keep them connected. Just having a reason to get up and get dressed one day a week instead of staying in pajamas all day long can be good for the psyche. And of course we are hoping that if a start up gets funded that they would be able to hire and pay the volunteer.
So if you are a start up who needs more hands on deck or if you are a job seekers who wants to try something new, come to District on Thursday at 5pm and jobnob! PLEASE RSVP ONLINE AT JOBNOB HAPPY HOUR
