Tonight I attended Mary Cosgrove's networking event (What's working well) which was attended by almost 50 attendees at the Miller campus. It was attended by both transitioning and other professionals that have benefitted from Mary's coaching. There were some great presenters. Mary was the keynote speaker talking about her vision for the future - focusing less on job club/networking and more on her strategic alliance which I'll get to later.
Steve Avery, Strategic Partner spoke about his experiences with business process improvement from both private industry and for government. Having worked 11 years with Sprint in process improvement, operational excellence and project management and having also worked with the public sector, it seems Steve was able to make the public sector (State Government agencies) more responsive to change and business process improvement than I've experienced. Chatting with him afterwards, he indicated that two things were in the plus side looking retrospectively at a SWOT analyses making this operational excellence change possible: the budget shortfall and no strong union opposition. Utah is unlike many other states I've worked in in having few strong public sector unions. Steve is currently developing business process improvement for Utah Higher education at the Salt Lake Community College. I might try and partner with him on other ventures or training in the future.
The third presenter, Tera Sunder, Chief People Officer for Nelson Labs, talked about her career goals, her training and talent management focus with many fast growing companies. Tera has a real passion for talent management and succession planning and is being recognized as a bright female star in Utah. She is now a connection and I hope to make a stronger connection in the future. Even if you don't do an informational interview, attending networking meetings and introducing youself to presenters and sharing common experiences is almost as good.
Another short presentation was provided by Pat Crook - HR Director at AdvancedMD. I've attached the link for people to go apply for IT jobs.
http://www.advancedmd.com/company/careers/
While I've not met Amy Adler before, she is a member of our Salt Lake Transitioning Group and is an experienced Resume/branding writer and creator. I recommend those who are struggling on their resume and brand to engage her or someone with similar skills because this part is so critical and sometimes we're hesitant to strongly brand ourselves. Sometimes recruiters can help you and I've got more than 80 connected to me, but other times it is what gets you into an interview.
I'm happy for Mary's success and new direction. She has decided to focus more of her time not on job club which I find rewarding as a volunteer endeavor but on teaching a class on Career Strategies for Today and Tomorrow. It focuses not just on strategies - self assessment and branding exercises but advanced social media and marketing strategies. The class will start in June and will last 5 weeks held at the Miller Campus. You can get more information at mary@whatsworkingwell.com. Looking at the subjects it appears the class of about 10-15 is a strong coaching class for those who need special attention.
An added benefit from the night's networking meeting was getting back with Julie Swaner who provides many of my job leads for our group and she just got her PhD from the U. Congratulations Julie!
So in your busy pursuits to find employment or networking for better connections, don't forget to attend special networking events to meet new and interesting people.
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