Meetup - A high tech, high touch networking tool

This week’s post comes from Christine Gertz, CAPS’ Library and Information Specialist. 

When students are about to try something new career-wise, such as starting a business or moving to a different city for an internship, we often urge them to talk with people they know to get advice or ideas. I’m not skeptical when people tell me they don’t know anyone they can reach out to. There are plenty of people on this campus who have left their families and friends behind to study here or who don’t want to go into the family business but pursue something else. There are also many new things a person might want to learn more about but of which people in their current network have no knowledge.

If meeting people in person matters to you when trying to learn about something new or to build your network, one tool you can use is Meetup.

Meetup is an online service you can use to find groups in you region and then get together in person. Meetup’s tagline is “neighbors getting together to learn something, do something, share something.” To form a Meetup, the organizer commits to getting people together face-to-face. (If you don’t want to meet in person, then try Google Hangouts.)




Joining a Meetup group is usually free. Some organizers ask that you pay a fee, which is not unreasonable because Meetup charges the organizers to create and maintain a group, and other organizations use Meetup to advertise ticketed events.

Without signing up for Meetup, you can see events in your area or search for events in a location you want to visit. For example, if you are going to Los Angeles for a conference, search Los Angeles for groups that interest you and message the group’s organizer to see if you can attend their Meetup. Any open group will allow you to see the information about the group, its organizers and its members. Closed groups will appear in a search, but you have to apply to join and it is up to the organizers to decide if they will let you join their group or not.



You can sign into Meetup using your Facebook account or you can create a separate account on the Meetup service. If you connect your Facebook profile to your Meetup account, you can see the groups your friends are members of and you can join a group where you already know someone. Meetup will also ask for permission to push out notifications on your Facebook feed of the groups you plan to attend, but the decision to turn that feature on is up to you. You can also sync your Meetup calendar - either all events in your groups or only the events that you have RSVPed to attend - with your Google, Outlook or iCal calendar so you don’t have to manage a separate calendar of Meetup events.

Two Meetups that are career-related, which you can use to see some of the upcoming events and how events and memberships are managed on Meetup are:

· Business Link Alberta

· Startup Edmonton

You can also select groups based on your hobbies, such as playing games, or based on your educational interests, such as studying Spanish.

Meetup is a simple tool that you can use to build your local network and improve your social and business connections.

When degrees 'work'

This week's guest post comes from Jonathan Faerber, CAPS' Communications Intern extraordinaire!

About two years ago, CAPS and the Faculty of Arts created a joint initiative called the Arts Work Experience (AWE) program. I applied for the program on March 23, 2011. A year later, on March 23, 2012, I was interviewed for a communications position with CAPS, and am now wrapping up my one year internship to become the first ever University of Alberta student to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Co-op Degree.

How did that all happen, and why did it happen? More importantly, what did I learn?

The truth is, I did not plan this: I certainly would never have guessed that I’d be writing this six years ago. I began my university degree in 2007 with limited work experience and with little idea, as with most students at an early age, of what I wanted to do with my life. Looking back, I can see I was not thinking about long-term career goals too much or, rather, I was thinking about my “career” in all the wrong ways: in terms of what class and what degree might hypothetically get me to careers I didn’t really know enough about to choose between. I was just like the next stereotyped “newbie”: the science first-year calling their degree pre-med, the arts undergrad going for law, or the engineering student studying, well, engineering and engineering only, just because.

But career success is never that easy to engineer. It’s not about taking A, B, and C courses, this or that degree, to get such and such a job. Not that there’s anything wrong with such goals; it’s just that goals, in and of themselves, don’t always tell us much about ourselves. But despite this, we still insist on worrying incessantly about our choice of classes and degree programs, even when we already have to worry about simply getting to class on time, feeding ourselves, finding a place to live, and so on. In my case, it was these other immediate worries of affording university life now, rather than obsessing over my future, that made me work things out.

And work I did. It took over two years of minimum-wage labour before I found a couple of jobs on campus. Around that time, I decided to major in English, and stumbled across the now-defunct English co-op program, which at the time I tried getting in on it, was already on its last legs.

So, in a way, I was watching for the AWE program when the e-mail from the Faculty of Arts arrived in my inbox about a year later. I would like to say at this point that the rest is history, but it really isn’t that simple. I had to learn how to write a resume/cover letter, and applied for five jobs and interviewed for four over a year before I landed this job (and a good thing too, since this was the best fit of the bunch).

Of course, working at CAPS taught me a lot about communications, about careers, and about myself. I gained a lot of technical know-how in print and web content, layout and design, social media, strategic marketing, and more. Along the way, I learned what kinds of things I like to do and began to think more about what I might do after this internship and what I would need to do to get there.

Career experts use the phrase “luck is no accident” to characterize this job search/career development type of story. I think this is true: I’m lucky to be here, but a lot of getting to where I am now had to do with taking chances and making an effort. Many students, I’m sure, can relate to this. We try out a lot of different things throughout our degree and make the most of what works when things do “work”.

But a whole lot of times, things don’t work out. And I think one of the great things about being a student, and about work experience programs especially, is that there’s a whole lot more room to try things that don’t work than there will be outside of school.

In the “real world”, for the most part, you aren’t allowed to make mistakes. Except you do, all the time. It’s called experience. So working in a setting that’s more forgiving of my mistakes allowed me to get that experience at a lower risk than I would have when stressing out, or worse, losing a job I might have gotten outside of the program, just because I wouldn’t yet know exactly what I’m doing.

In that way too, being able to try out a job before committing to long-term post-graduate plans helped a great deal. I found out that while I love working in communications and will use the skills I’ve learned over the past year throughout my career, I also really, really missed going to school and the many diverse challenges I’ve already overcome to complete a degree. And so, somewhat ironically, I’ve decided to return to more school this fall and do it all over again for my MA in philosophy.

When I tell people this, they look startled and say something like, “Well, that’s okay, I guess.” I don’t blame them. Before this internship, I had similar doubts about whether an Arts degree was a “smart” choice. If it weren’t for the AWE program, the encouragement of its staff, and the confidence it inspires in students, I might have spent a year or two after graduation—perhaps more—entertaining those doubts as well. But now I don’t have second thoughts: my internship taught me that studying Arts—that any university degree, for that matter—is by no means a dead-end, no more than it is a means to an end. Instead, this next experience will challenge me to step outside of my intellectual comfort zone and improve myself as a thinker, as a communicator, and as a person. Ultimately, I know I’ll use the skills I develop during the degree wherever I go, and that employers in our society will continue to rely on these, too, to build our future.

So now, when I notice students worrying about work and about what others think and if they will be lucky enough at all to land a great job I want to shake them up and say, “Hey, it’s not about them, it’s about you and improving yourself and making yourself so awesome that they’ll also be lucky to land you as a great employee.”

I’m lucky enough to have learned that lesson early.

And if you keep trying, you’ll make your “luck” happen too.

If you could have any job in the world...

…what would it be and why? If you had the opportunity to have dinner with four people – living or dead, real or fictitious – who would they be and why? If you could be any animal, what animal would you be and why?

Getting ready for a job interview, most people expect to be asked questions related to their understanding of the job and employer, the skills and experiences they have to offer, and why they are interested in the job. But questions about your dream job or dinner party? Or what animal you’d be if you could be an animal? What’s the point? How does the person sitting across from you expect you to respond?

Generally, when interviewers ask such questions they are most interested in your explanation – the why part of the question. Why would you want to be head of the United Nations or a famous stage actor? Why would you choose your four favourite authors to dine with? Why would you choose to be an eagle or a panda bear or a dog? What they are trying to do is to assess what’s termed in the biz as your ‘cultural fit.’

There are more obvious questions interviewers may ask to determine applicants’ cultural fit, such as what did you like best (or least) about your previous (or current) job (or work environment)? What qualities do you admire in the people with whom you work? How do you like to be supervised? What is the most important factor you need in your work for you to be happy?

These questions go beyond assessing the skills and qualifications you have that are also necessary to perform the job, to assessing things like your values, your behaviours and what motivates you. Your responses to such questions are meant to help the interviewers decide if and how you will fit in with other employees in the organization and within the organization’s culture.

Why is this important? Well, most employers believe when there is a good cultural fit between employees’ values and motivations and the culture of an organization, employees will be happy in their work. And happy workers, in theory, are more productive than workers who dread going to work each day, are less likely to look for another job, are less likely to experience conflict with co-workers and are absent from work less.

I read an article recently (I think it was from Maclean’s magazine) against hiring for cultural fit. The author argued that when employers only hire people with similar values, beliefs, etc., they miss opportunities for creativity and innovation. I get the point. But I also think that if, for example, your organization emphasizes teamwork and collaboration among employees and you hire someone who is highly competitive and doesn’t like working with other people…well, don’t be surprised if you end up spending a lot of your time managing workplace conflict.

Kids and careers

I just read an article about a new program in Ontario aimed at helping high school students decide what they want to do after they graduate. The writer references a census done by the Toronto District School Board that shows 73 percent of its grades 9 to 12 students say they are worried about their future. Some of the causes of students’ worries noted in the article are Canada’s high youth unemployment rate (nearly double the national average), the cost of post-secondary education and level of debt college and university students graduate with, and lack of labour market information and supports. It is the latter that the new program aims to address.

What really caught my attention, though, was a poll embedded in the article. The question was ‘Is kindergarten too early to start discussing a child’s career choice?’ I had to rub my eyes and reread the question but yes, that’s what it said. I then clicked on the ‘view results’ button and, not surprisingly, 82% of readers who responded to the pool chose ‘yes, kindergarten is too early to start discussing a child’s career choice’ while 18% responded it was not too early. I count myself among the 82% for a number of reasons not the least of which is that four and five-year olds simply do not have the experience or vocabulary to engage in conversations about careers. That being said, exposing children to a variety of careers can be helpful when it comes to those conversations and making decisions later in life. When I was in elementary school, I remember going on field trips to the police station, the symphony, the firefighters’ hall, among other places. The people who worked at those places talked to us about their background and day-to-day work and sometimes we were even given some hands-on activities, like sliding down the fire pole. Yipee!

I would support exposing children to careers in this and other ways not just so they can learn there is more out there besides teacher and what mom and dad do, but also to breakdown stereotypes about work that are based on gender, class and other factors (e.g. making sure they hear from both female and male firefighters when they visit the fire hall). However, I can’t see how asking very young children to think and talk seriously about their own career can be all that helpful. What probably prompted the writer to include the poll in the article was a comment made by someone who works for the organization that facilitates the new program. Commenting on the cost of the program, which will be about $1,000 per student, she said, “It’s better to pay a little up front and know your child is making the right decisions than pay for four years of university and have your child say I’m in the wrong program.” What this fails to recognize is: (1) when you ask workers if they are doing what they thought they would be doing when they were 18 the vast majority will say ‘no’ and (2), as people grow (e.g. experience new things, develop new knowledge and skills) their career aspirations shift. So it is not surprising that many – not all – university students change programs or otherwise alter their career plans during a time of their life when they are doing a lot of discovery learning. As John Krumboltz and Al Levin, authors Luck is no accident (one of my favourite career planning books) write, asking a young person to make a commitment to an occupation they haven’t even tried out - and expecting them to stick with their decision - is like asking them to choose their future spouse before the first date!

Summer job search tips

You probably heard that one of the casualties of the 7 March provincial budget was the Summer Temporary Employment Program (STEP). STEP was a wage subsidy program not-for-profit organizations (e.g. charities, community leagues, government departments, universities and colleges) could apply to for funding to hire a student for the summer. All of the summer jobs I held while I was going to university were STEP-funded save one. As a matter of fact, I credit the last summer job I held as playing a significant role in how I ended up working at CAPS. That job was to organize a resource library for staff in the employee relations branch of the social services department. Near the end of the summer I heard that CAPS was looking for a career resources coordinator so I applied. While I was successful in getting an interview - in large part because of the experience I gained throughout the summer - I didn’t get the job. But a couple of weeks later, the director of CAPS called to offer me a different position. That was almost 25 years ago and, of course, I have never left. I often wonder where I would be today if I hadn’t gotten that interview.

So I was disappointed to hear about the cancellation of the STEP program this summer not only because I personally benefited from it but also because of my role as the director of CAPS. I really value programs like STEP that help to create employment for students, and all the staff at CAPS get concerned when we hear news that negatively impacts students’ job prospects. So I thought the least I can do is provide you with some advice on looking for summer work.

First, did you know CAPS works with many employers who post jobs with us, including summer jobs? And if you haven’t heard, we recently launched a new online job bank. You no longer have to be at a computer to access our job postings. You can now search for and view jobs anytime, anywhere from your mobile device. And that’s just one of the new features. I just checked our online job bank and we currently have 50 summer job postings. Something you should be aware of is that a single job posting does not necessarily equal a single job as many postings include multiple vacancies. For example, the job title of one of our current summer job postings is 'Environmental Educator/Natural Interpreter.' It is with the U of A’s Devonian Botanic Garden. They have nine openings.

Second, be proactive in your work search. Don’t rely on job postings or other job advertisements. If there is an organization you are interested in working with for the summer, contact them directly. Let them know the type of work you are interested in and what you have to offer. Also make sure friends, family – everyone you know – are aware you are looking for a summer job. In other words, network, network, network! The more eyes and ears you have open for you, the more likely you’ll hear about opportunities, whether they are advertised or not.

And my last bit of advice is to make sure you are prepared to apply and interview for opportunities that present themselves. While I don’t want to make this blog post one big advertisement for CAPS, I do want you to be aware that we have a number of services and resources on resume writing and job interviews. For example, you can book an appointment with one of our career advisors to have your resume critiqued and to practice your interview skills. We also offer a free lunchtime seminar on looking for summer work coming up on Monday, 25 March from 12:05 to 12:55 p.m. in the CCIS Career Centre. Dont' miss it!

Shortage of jobs or shortage of workers?

It’s hard to know what to believe these days with all the mixed messages you see and hear. On the one hand, there are warnings of a skills shortage. For example, a recent survey by Randstad Canada found the following: “According to survey respondents, two thirds (66%) of Canadian employers have trouble finding the right people for specific jobs. And even more (58%) believe Canadian employers are experiencing problems finding highly qualified people. Additionally, 55 per cent of Canadian employers say they expect a shortage of highly qualified employees within the next three years. While more than half of Canadian respondents also say they expect to see a shortage of staff in specific jobs.”

On the other hand, post-secondary students are being told that a university education no longer guarantees a good job and comfortable existence (did it ever?) and to expect to be underemployed in a never ending circle of temporary positions. For example, the headline of an article in a recent issue of MacLean’s Magazine read: “The new underclass: Why an entire generation of ambitious, smart and well-educated Canadians have no future.” (italics mine) At the end of January the CBC aired a documentary called ‘Generation Jobless’ which also focused on the plight of new university graduates struggling to find work and toiling in jobs that don’t require a degree.

So what gives? Many employers are saying they cannot find the highly skilled workers they need, yet a number of university graduates are struggling to find work where they can utilize the knowledge and skills they gained through their education. According to the experts, the problem is a mismatch between the skills employers are looking for and the skills many of those looking for work have to offer. I can see this to a certain extent when talking about specific technical skills, but again there are conflicting messages. For example, the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers (CACEE) conducted a survey of 450 Canadian employers who said that the core skills they value most include “communication, analytical ability and a strong work ethic,” as well as teamwork and problem-solving skills. Aren’t these just the skills that many university students develop?

So what is a current university student to think or, more importantly, do? One piece of advice I’ve come across is to tailor your education to labour market demands; for example, find out what occupations or professions are growing and in demand and pursue a degree relevant to those areas. I would caution any student about using this approach because predicting where demand will be in the labour market in five or even one year can be a bit like forecasting the weather! As a matter of fact, the MacLean’s article referred to above begins with an example of a university graduate who did just that. She got a degree in applied linguistics with the goal of teaching English as a second language: “She chose a vocation that, by unanimous opinion, represented a path to steady employment – teaching English as a second language to the thousands of immigrants pouring into B.C.” By the time she graduated in 2008 with “the gold standard of ESL qualifications,” government funding for language transition programs had been significantly reduced and “the entry level position she imagined would launch her career never materialized.”

So what do I advise? Two things for today. First, regardless of what you are studying, becoming involved in activities outside of the classroom and even off campus is key to learning about - sometimes even creating – work opportunities, making important connections and building your skills base. (If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll recognize this is a theme that I and guest bloggers come back to again and again.) Second, be critical about what you see and hear regarding what the labour market holds for today’s graduates. Some of it can be quite alarmist. An article on the University Affairs website about the CBC documentary referred to above makes some excellent points about how statistics and labour market forecasts can be used to paint a particular picture. For example, the 15% youth unemployment rate referred to in the documentary includes all Canadians 15 to 24 years old. However, the unemployment rate for 25 to 29 year olds, which includes more individuals who have completed a degree, is just under six percent. Wouldn’t that be a better group to compare university graduates with?

I’ll end this post by saying I in no way want to leave the impression that finding a good job after you complete your degree will be easy. How soon you find work, the opportunities that will be available, where you’ll end up, etc., etc. depend upon so many factors, a number of which you have little or no influence upon. But I think you gain a lot of getting a university of education and the value of your degree should not be measure only by the jobs you work in over the course of your career.

Your Evolution Revolution

This week's guest post comes from Jodi Richter, Student Life and Industrial Internship Advisor for the Faculty of Science.

As a student I always found it difficult to see past my next exam or deadline. I never seemed to have time for career and networking events. They were something only for people about to graduate, right? Now I work in student and career services, and I’ve seen how working on networking skills throughout your degree can make the evolution from student to professional much more effective, natural and even fun. Here are some ideas to get started:

After countless hours of research and studying it can be tough to get excited about an evening of editing and formatting your resume, especially if you aren't planning on applying for positions soon. But updating your resume and taking inventory of what you've accomplished in the last few months can give you a big boost of confidence and a sense of direction, even if you are the only person that sees it. Stop by with your resume (hard copy or on your laptop) for a FREE 10 minute consultation at CAPS Rapid Resume Review session on March 6 in the CCIS Career Centre.

If you put off starting a work wardrobe until you graduate, you'll have of a closet full of awkward pants and ill- fitting blazers you had to buy in a panic before you started a new job. Instead, start thinking about how you would like to look as a professional and begin collecting pieces now. By the time you graduate, you'll have a carefully curated professional wardrobe you love (and saved your budget and the environment). Grab a seat at the SUB stage at noon on March 15 for the EcoStyle Fashion Show to get some ideas and then head upstairs to the Goodwill Pop- up Boutique to pick up career wear you can afford now (all items priced under ten dollars!)

You've heard "don't talk to strangers" your whole life as a matter of personal safety, but now you've got to start approaching people to broaden your network and hear about opportunities. Talking about yourself (and listening to others) effectively takes practice. These conversations can help you figure out who you are, where you fit in, what you want to do, how you can help people achieve their goals and how they can help you. On March 11 learn what you should (and shouldn't) say at Networking for Newbies.

You've been going out for dinner with friends and family for years and have yet to be thrown out of a restaurant for bad manners. So why should you worry about dining etiquette when you're out with potential employers or colleagues? Because eating in a professional setting has its own set of rules - some that may surprise you. Stop second guessing and dazzle your new contacts at company dinners and lunch meetings by attending Dine with Class on March 11. What steps have you taken as a student to revolutionize your evolution professional? What part of entering the workforce do you find daunting? I (and the fine folks at CAPS) would love to hear what you think.