On April 4 2011 A close friend called me with my favorite message. He called to tell me he "got the job!"
I love that phone call and it makes me smile and say "thank you" to the Big Man Upstairs (yes, I'm referring to God) every time I get it.
Dan also mentioned he planned to write his "memoirs" covering the time that he was unemployed. He planned to share his story with all the members at the Tulsa FUMC Employment Transitions Group. (If you are in Tulsa OK and On The Hunt, it's a GREAT place to be by the way). I read his story and asked him if I could share it on my blog. I write to help others in their search for a new career, Dan's story is from the heart and an excellent example of how the job search should be handled.
Our time On The Hunt is a rough trip. It can, and should be a learning experience. It can, and should be a time for growth, both personally and professionally. It will also be a time of pain, of self-doubt, self-questioning, perhaps a few (or a lot of) tears; a time of anger, acceptance and finally, a time of peace.
If the sentence above didn't apply to the last time you were unemployed; IMHO you were not unemployed, you were on vacation, and I think Dan would agree.
Below is Dan's story, as he wrote it. I haven't changed a letter, blame him for any typos...
A Diary of Dot Com Unemployment
By Dan Regouby (4/5/2011)
A guy in Wisconsin received a message from a gal in Canada regarding an urgent employment opportunity in Oklahoma. He forwarded the message to a guy in Oklahoma because a guy in New York had connected them six months earlier. The guy in Oklahoma sent his resume to a gal in Illinois who sent it to a guy in Texas who called the guy in Oklahoma for a screening interview. The guy in Texas called another gal in Canada who called the guy in Oklahoma to set up an interview eight miles from his house.
Welcome to unemployment in this dot com age! Though no single action made this interview a reality, the following “diary of events” from the guy in Oklahoma who, by the way, had to choose from TWO employment offers, illustrates what Teri Aulph wrote in her examiner.com article on April 3, “There is hope” and, “Giving up should not be an option”
The Oklahoma Guy wrote…
I entered the unemployed "workforce" on July 21, 2010. I immediately had my resume updated professionally, which I later learned shouldn’t be necessary if you are well networked and have people who are willing to help.
I began doing what I thought was the "best thing to do" by getting my name and resume out on the standard dot coms, calling a few local "headhunters", and calling people from my past who might be able to help. I had joined LinkedIn a long time ago but was not at all active so, in mid August I updated a few things on LinkedIn too.
In the 3rd week of August 2010… I re-connected with a man via LinkedIn with whom I'd worked over 20 years ago in central Texas. I'll call him Robert... since that's his name! He had just accepted a new position near New York City.
During the last week of August 2010… I enrolled at Southern Nazarene University (SNU) in Tulsa in their Organizational Leadership adult-learning program on a path to graduation in November 2011.
August 31... Robert wrote a recommendation for me on LinkedIn (He knew the power of the tool and I didn't... yet). He also advised that I connect to about six other search-engine dot coms some of which directly dealt with my career path… so I did!
I now had about eight "engines" running my unemployment "train" with at least three "engineers" (recruiters) trying to place me and I was averaging fifteen to twenty on-line job applications per week. I was feeling pretty good about my efforts and myself because I had even interviewed a couple of times in person and by phone... YEA!
September 23… Robert gave me Tim’s contact info. Tim lives in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I immediately called Tim and connected with him on LinkedIn and he said that he'd be happy to help me because, "any friend of Robert is a friend of mine"… COOL!
September 24, 2010 through January 17, 2011… I continued my application-filling and resume sending cycle with only a few encouraging responses such as phone interviews and even a couple more personal interviews. I’d been in front of employers but, for the first time in my career, was not getting hired. During that nearly 4-month period my severance money ran out, my divorce became final, and I began to feel the pressure of what I was beginning to believe was my repeated failure to measure up.
I continued leaning forward into every day except for the days periodically that said “no”. Some days were rather mean to me y’know. They forced me to moan and groan in self pity so that I’d know what giving up might look and feel like and though they were few and far between… they provided clarity on what I DID NOT want. On my “leaning-forward” days I’d get up early, exercise, dress like an employed person, do my hours searching and applying, and continue my SNU studies which, in retro, have been a life-saver.
January 18… I received a group E-mail from Isabelle Estes of the Career Transitions Group that meets at the University of Phoenix every Tuesday morning at 11. She obtained my E-mail address from one of those “standard dot coms” I referenced earlier... and on a whim... I attended.
Isabelle and Vernice Bersche are giving back to the community by offering professional coaching for people in career transition and the information offered is absolutely awesome and for me, life changing. This was my first introduction to unemployment networking in Tulsa Oklahoma. I met some other awesome people who STRONGLY encouraged me to go to the Employment Transitions Ministry and Overcoming Job Transitions (ETM and OJT) group meeting the following Thursday morning at First United Methodist Church (FUMC) in downtown Tulsa.
January 20… I went to the ETM and OJT group meeting at FUMC for the first time and, with support from very caring people in both networking groups, I began listening intently and responding accordingly to the sometimes overwhelming amount of information offered at every meeting.
I took advantage of what the ETM and OJT group calls “The Launch Pad” two times in the first four weeks of attending. The Launch Pad is a 20-minute time slot offered to anyone willing to go through it where the searching candidate is given the opportunity to present their resume accompanied by their story. After presenting, the candidate would receive very helpful critiques as well as contact information and ideas aimed at “launching” the candidate into a more productive level of career alignment.
During the next 36 days… I went to eight networking meetings, created, ordered, and received personal business cards, created a personal Website, tweaked my resume more times than I willing to admit (LOL), created and practiced my own seven-minute drill (OK... I know it’s supposed to be 2 minutes but I'm still working on it!), "capsulized" my two-minute answer to the question, "so tell me about yourself", created and/or tweaked my resume and all of my LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo, G-mail, and Blogger accounts for optimal database searching, kept up with my classes at SNU, and continued applying to employment ads all at an exhausting pace.
February 24… after the ETM and OJT meeting... Russ (one of the leaders of the FUMC group) handed me a ticket for the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce networking event that evening with the encouragement from many saying, "It's a great place to network and practice your two-minute or elevator speech". I attended and did just that at least 23.7 times based on the number of business cards I scavenged over the nearly 3-hours of networking.
Not really sure how I'd done, I moseyed toward the exit feeling that I had spent my time wisely. All of the vendors were packing their materials including Teri Aulph of Teri Aulph Consulting whose booth I had passed without stopping at least ten times mostly due to it being right next to a 3-D video booth with some intense video playing that captured my attention on every round. I read some of the material she was now placing into boxes and positioned myself for my 24th two-minute drill. After a brief discussion and her graciously giving me a copy of her book titled "Experience Job Satisfaction", she agreed to speak with me by phone at 10:01 the following morning.
February 25 at 10:06 (I was late)… I called Teri and she agreed to meet with me the following Friday at 9 AM at Borders so I could show and discuss with her my culture-measuring process. The following week I had to travel to Dallas for urgent family reasons and Teri agreed that I should call her when I returned.
March 9… I received a call from Joe, a recruiter in Denver to whom I sent a resume a month earlier, telling me that a candidate for a position in Norman OK had not accepted the position for which I had applied and that he was attempting to get me in for an interview… YEA!
March 11… I picked up the phone at about 10 AM and on a whim called Teri back intending to reschedule the meeting for the following week. When Teri answered, she told me in a rather surprised tone, that when her phone rang she had been looking for my E-mail address because she was available at 1 PM that day to chat. We agreed to meet at Borders and that is when my life and career path significantly changed.
The scheduled one-hour turned into three hours and nine minutes (not that I was counting) due to her 2 PM appointment at the same location canceling. During that time we discussed many things including our history-highlights, my culture-measurement process, and how she perceived me at the Chamber of Commerce event then during our time together at Borders.
Teri told me that she almost chose to not meet with me because of how "hyper" I appeared at the Chamber of Commerce event. She had my undivided attention… so I asked for more detail. She explained that she met with me one, because I had developed a process that measures organizational culture and two, that she had offered her professional assistance to anyone from the ETM and OJT group.
She went on to tell me that when she met me at Borders that I was much more relaxed and that I conversed very well and captured her attention with my passion for what I was presenting though it needed some tweaking. She then told me something that hit me hard and brought a tear to my eye.
She said, "Dan, when you told me about your education it was as if you were apologizing. Your whole countenance changed and you appeared ashamed of the fact that you don't yet have a degree." She then coached and encouraged me by telling me that I have an amazingly diverse background and the fact that I am on schedule to get a degree by year's end proves that I am a learner and that every conversation... especially interviews... should be filled with that fact. Our meeting ended with mutual desire to meet again to discuss my soon to be modified cultural analysis presentation and to keep her apprised of any career-search developments. I should note here that I have been coached and supported by dear friends and family many of whom had similar encouragement but for some reason… Teri’s words hit me at the core and I heard it clearly.
March 14 at 10:09 PM… I received E-mail from Tim (Remember... the one in Wisconsin who is good friends with Robert in New York who knew me in Texas 20 years ago?) who had received E-mail from Crystal, a recruiter in Canada with "Urgent Requirement - Environmental Health and Safety Manager" in the Subject line. I immediately responded to Crystal upon Tim's advice.
March 16… I received a call from Thomas, a recruiter from Crystal’s company in Houston, who performed a screening interview by phone then passed me to Lori Ann back in Canada who set up an interview in Broken Arrow, OK on March 22nd.
March 22… I interviewed at the Broken Arrow Company with a very humble, relaxed, and confident spirit and they said that they would definitely contact me to schedule a second interview the following week. As I left... the VP of Operations handed me the book, Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx and asked that I read it and send him my comments on how the culture championed in the book might fit into their culture. I went home and began reading the book (which was very good by the way) and by noon the next day had sent my thoughts back as requested.
March 23 at about 10:30 AM… while I was still attempting to finish the book, I received a call from a friend who had hired me at my last job. He told me that he had just spoken with a friend of 20 years working in Midwest City whose company was seeking a safety professional and that they were just finishing their interviewing process. He told his friend about me so I immediately contacted his friend and sent him my resume upon his request.
March 24 at 4:55 PM… I received a call from the Broken Arrow Company asking me to meet with their plant manager and the head of HR for the second interview at 10 AM the next morning. I agreed!
March 25… I met for my second interview, which went as well as the first. They said they would all meet to discuss the situation and that they would contact me the next week. I also received a call from Midwest City for an interview at 9:30 AM on the 29th I immediately called Joe (the recruiter in Denver) telling him that I was interviewing in Midwest City and would appreciate an interview opportunity in Norman while I was there if at all possible.
March 28… Joe called me back asking if a 1 PM interview with the Norman company would be OK and of course… I agreed.
March 29… I left Tulsa around 7 AM and arrived in Midwest City around 9:15. I interviewed with my friend’s friend and a few others then rushed to Norman, grabbed a Taco Bell fajita wrap (not recommended ten minutes before an interview), then interviewed with the some top folks from the Norman Company. Somewhere around 4 PM, while just leaving Norman, the Broken Arrow Company called and gave me a verbal offer of employment… OMG!
March 30… I received a message from Joe saying that the Norman Company was going to “continue their search”. I’m convinced it was due to the fajita wrap.
March 31… I received an offer from the Midwest City Company… OMGX2!
April 1… I accepted a position with the Broken Arrow Company!
So… what happened in the last 30 days of his unemployment that hadn’t happened in the first 224? He “wrapped the right language around his story” (Teri Aulph) and presented it with humble confidence!
No single action changed the final 30 days of his unemployment rather, a series of single actions taking place over a 20-year period the last 254 days of which included love, acceptance, brokenness, humility, change, education, coaching, and continuous encouragement from the “force” of the unemployed people surrounding me and the many selfless individuals helping us to find our way.
Thanks to each and every one of you who continue to play a critical part in my life… I will give back!
Dan (The Oklahoma Guy)
Dan Regouby
http://www.paragon-films.com
http://www.alwaysaware.info
alwaysaware@ymail.com
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