Career Connections Helps Job Seekers Make Meaningful Connections

Career Connections, previously the Career Assistance Network for Birmingham (CAN-B), is working hard to help area professionals connect with resources, professional expertise, and other motivated job seekers to share stories and helpful tips during tough job transitions.

Gayle Lantz of WorkMatters, Gerriann Fagan of The Prism Group, and Lou Thibodaux, deacon in the Episcopal Church of Birmingham, founded CAN-B two years ago as a website. The initial goal of CAN-B was to bring together information from local church career ministries and monthly meetings for job seekers to find in one centralized website, and for job seekers to use this as a resource for networking opportunities and advice from job transition experts.

The Career Connections website has grown to a blog format with information on monthly meetings, other opportunities for networking, resources, and information on speakers for their monthly meetings. Their monthly meetings are not only opportunities for motivated job seekers to network and learn new tips from experts, though. These meetings have turned into a time for people to share their stories and experiences as they work through the sometimes difficult roller coaster that is a job transition. This was never a defined goal for Career Connections, but the leaders are happy to see that their work is offering support to others.

Career Connections is not the only group that has been formed to support the long-term unemployed during their job transitions; Career Builders, Career Assistance LLC, and others are just some that were highlighted in this article written by Roy L. Williams from The Birmingham News.

Career Connections meetings are held on the 4th Monday of every month. Join them this month at their meeting to hear from Glenn Phillips of Forte` Incorporated.

Score: 1 for Networking

A Testimony on The Power of Networking

Cathy Hulsey is a volunteer in our Birmingham community. She shared a story with Team PUI that we knew had to be shared with the entire community.

Taking the initiative to do some networking can seem tedious and exhausting. Too often we are guilty of talking ourselves out of a networking opportunity for one reason or another. Next time you begin to talk yourself out of attending an event or other networking opportunity for any reason, please think again.

Cathy’s story is a testimony on the power of networking, and we hope that all of you will remind yourself of this story before turning down a chance to take a step into the unknown and meet new people.

Here is Cathy’s Story:

“I attended the last TechBirmingham event in April at the request of a friend. Seeing as how this was an event geared towards IT technical people, I didn’t see how this would benefit someone with my background in HR and Project Management. I was wrong.

I made many contacts that evening, one of which passed my resume on to the CEO of his company. The CEO immediately followed up with me and scheduled an interview. After several discussions, an executive level HR position was created for my knowledge and skill sets within the organization.

I can’t stress enough how valuable networking events such as this can be. This is an excellent event and opportunity to network.”

Cathy Hulsey
VP Human Resources and Legal Services
EPL, Inc.

*****

Readers, do you have any successful (or even unsuccessful)
networking stories to share from a time when you least expected it?
In your opinion, what makes a good networking event?

Please leave a comment and tell us what you think.

Follow this link for other valuable opportunities to network.