Location: Open Door Shelter
Date: Monday, April 29, 2013; 6:45-8:30 pm
I was back at the ODS for the
second visit of this month, but for the first time since I have been coming
here, it was broad daylight outside. In
fact, I was so used to coming here when the building was bathed in artificial
light, that it was almost as if I was at a different place. Besides Claire, the other volunteers today
were Samantha and Aki, with me being the only returning person. I told the newcomers about my experiences at
ODS and mentioned that Claire was one of the reasons why I enjoyed coming back,
for she truly is a very good leader for this program. Claire told us that today we would be
teaching the residents about the importance of Networking, and there were three
main areas that she wanted to touch – (1) How to network, (2) Important
Qualities about oneself and (3) Extracting the maximum from your network. She asked us each to pick one of the topics
and I choose the last one. Then it was
time to go upstairs and commence the evening.
 |
| Networking |
We went and sat around the table
for introductions. There weren't as many
participants as before and I counted six, which meant that each of the
volunteers would be grouped with 2 residents.
This would in fact work very well, since it would allow us to give
personal attention to the participants. We
went around the table telling everyone what we did and when my turn came, I
told everyone that tonight’s topic was something I could talk a lot about,
since my career has been all about networking.
I told them that I had gone from a scientist who worked on glucose
monitoring sensors, to someone who worked in the field of electricity – all
because of networking. Someone asked if
I was an electrician and I said I was not, neither was I an engineer. This meant that I was not doing any of the
cool jobs in that field and so the residents moved on to the next person.
 |
| Yeah, that's me! |
After the introductions, Claire
had an ice breaker game for us to play and as usual, it was a fantastic way to
get everyone to participate. While we
were seated, she went around and taped a famous person’s name to our back, so
that others could see who it was, but you couldn't. The task was to identify who ‘you were’ by
asking questions that could only be answered by a “Yes” or “No”. Claire had ensure a wide selection of
character’s, ranging from ‘Minnie Mouse’
to ‘Martin Luther King’ to ‘Michael Jordan’. One girl who had spent the entire time eating
ice was ‘Santa Claus’ and I said that
perhaps it was appropriate that she was doing that. I got a girl who was ‘George Washington’ and she asked if she was young. I had no idea how to answer that and was
thinking about the right response when someone bailed me out by saying she was
a historical figure who was now dead. My
own card said ‘Beyoncé’ and despite a
few clues, it took me some time to guess the answer. This is probably going to be the only time in
the recorded history of this universe that I will be mentioned alongside Beyoncé!
I started with two teenagers –
Terence and Tammy – and asked what networking meant to them. I told them to view it like ‘Degrees of Separation’, where you try
to connect with people who know someone whom you know as so on. It was not just “Contacting your homies”, as they put it. I told them about my networking experience
and how it helped in acquiring both of my jobs and told them to use LinkedIn,
which I termed as ”Facebook for
Professionals.” I told them that as one starts networking, you never ask
anyone directly for a job, but rather ask for introductions. Terence said that he had two job offers - one from
Nancy’s Pizza and one from Al’s Roast Beef and when I asked which one he was
going to choose, he said whichever paid the maximum. I said what if they both pay the same, at
which he said then he would go one which was better. I said that he should go to the pizza place
since that is one job that can perhaps lead to a gourmet place making high-end
pizza. Throughout this process Tammy seemed least interested, and did not even fill out the short exercise that
Claire had asked them to do, which was filling out buckets of categories – such
as Family, Friends & Neighbors, School Connections, Work or Volunteer
Contacts, Clubs or Groups, etc. – with people that you knew. This would help the candidates identify how
many people they had in their potential network. Once Terence was done, we reviewed his list and
talked about other important things such as Making initial contact, how to 'Schmooze', Broaden the network and even what to do if you didn't get the
job.
Soon Claire asked us to move to
the next person, which was Marnie in my case.
She was there with her 1 year old baby girl and while she was extremely
attentive, her one eye was on her baby and at times she got up when the baby
started crying. She gave me her resume
and while I commend her for having one, it could use some tweaking. I told her to consolidate and use specific
examples for her career thus far as well as her accomplishments to date. More importantly, I told her to quantify –
one of my favorite things to see on a resume.
She told me she had ‘good office skills’ which meant that she could
write a very precise objective: ‘Use my
business skills to find an office administrator position’. In terms of quantification, I told her to
mention how she used her office skills to ‘make X presentations for accomplishing ABC’. I saw that she had said
something about being a leader in her dormitory. I asked her for how many people and she said
27, another quantifiable thing that she could mention. Finally, she had said that she was a ‘Top Student of the Month’. Once again, I asked her to quantify by
mentioning how many other students there were.
My session with Marnie had
been quite productive and then I was with my last person for the day and
the most fun that I have had since I have started coming here. This was Kallie, and she had been the ‘Santa Claus’ who had been eating ice at
the beginning. I asked her about that
and she said that she has been doing that ever since her daughter had been born
18 months ago. I asked if her daughter
was living there as well and she said no, but she would be seeing her this
summer. Kallie is extremely witty, funny and full of life. The kind of
person who can light up a room and I got along very well with her. I asked if she knew what networking
meant. She said “fishing”. I asked why and
she responded that if she catches something like her job, then her “net is working…thank you ladies and
gentleman”. I howled with laughter,
but couldn't argue against her logic. She
was constantly giving me High-Fives, like when she asked me what my most valuable
possession was. I said my mind and she
said it was her brain. Claire, who had
joined us, said it was her Ford Focus car!
I asked her what she wants to do and she said, "become a school psychologist" – something that Claire does professionally.
So I looked at Kallie and told her to ‘network’ with Claire, right there
in front of me. She asked Claire some
excellent questions which showcased her interest, without her directly asking for
a job. She even asked Claire if she
could shadow her at work, something that may end up happening. Looking at this, I whispered to Kallie that
she seems to have 'caught a big fish!'
Kallie said that she wants to become a ‘Superstar’ at which I told her to become a ‘Star’ first, before trying to acquire superpowers. As a final thing, I asked her which she
thought was more important – Learning or Knowledge. She said learning and I agreed, since
learning means you have truly absorbed the knowledge.
It had been another great session
and the volunteers debriefed downstairs.
I asked Claire what she thought about Kallie and she said that while
Kallie had a great personality, she needed to learn how to be more
professional, something that will come with time. But what a great personality Kallie has. Before we left, she asked Claire for her
contact information and Claire said that her last name is spelled as ‘Forde’, though it pronounced ‘Ford’, the ‘e’ being silent. I couldn't resist and asked, “Hey Kallie, what did the ‘e’ say to the other
vowels?” “Nothing”, she replied, “It
was silent”.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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