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By Root 570 0

intensely into local hiring trends. While some are career candidates who interview for fun (whether they’re working or not), most are displaced middle managers actively reinventing themselves for today’s jobs. There are contests and other incentives.

But many job clubs are less than a waste of time. There’s a large subculture of people who (for a variety of reasons) dwell rather than do. Many are highly educated and have been effectively unemployed for years. If education without an occupation could make you successful, I’d never have taken the bar exam.

Get enough of them in a job club, and you can charitably substitute the word job for social. So ask about who’s there before you invest interview time. Interviewing is not a team sport. It’s an individual athletic competition.

Please run from those kinds of associations—whatever they’re called. We’re building your confidence back by direct, forward, positive, instant action. Anything else—and I include any advice from anyone else right now—will slow you down. If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting. If that’s not instant interviews, you’re doing something wrong. Paint by the numbers. One hundred and one of them!

I mentioned becoming the program director at the top because that’s the place for a savvy I.I. This gives you the opportunity of a livelihood to call, e-mail, and write hiring honchos.

Hiring has them participating in the community. It’s the best PR and it’s free. (“So buy our stuff. Let us build big buildings, make noise, obstruct traffic, and pollute.”)

The program director of the Jobstown Job Club gets return calls.

If you don’t have or don’t like a local jobs club, repeat after me as you wave your magic pen: “Abracadabra!” (Can’t find the pen? Check your left front pocket—Do 1.) “I am now the Jobstown Job Club. I vote for myself as Jobstown Job Club program director. I accept the position. I start yesterday at my usual pay.”

Nobody knows what program director really means. High-level corporate execs don’t admit to much. That’s how they became high-level corporate execs. They don’t ask, either.

Smile and dial. Here’s how it goes:

Operator: Jobstown Bank. More bank for the buck. How may I direct your call?

You: Hi! What’s the name of the head of Human Resources?

Operator: Patti Personable.

You: What’s her title?

Operator: Vice president of Human Resources.

You: May I speak to her?

Operator: It’s extension 437. I’ll transfer you now.

You: Thanks.

Assistant: Human Resources. Ms. Personable’s office. Clarabelle speaking.

You: Ms. Personable, please.

Assistant: Who’s calling?

You: Ima Looking, program director of the Jobstown Job Club.

Assistant: Oh, hi, Ima! How are you?

You: Fine. Haven’t we met?

Assistant: I’m sure—wasn’t it at our Jobstown Banks On You event?

Here’s Patti.

Patti: Patti Personable.

You: Hi, Patti! This is Ima Looking with the Jobstown Job Club.

Patti: Hi, Ima! Are you calling to arrange for a speaker?

You: No, we’re starting a new Value Added Inventory program, and I wanted to get your input. Thanks to your time and talent, Jobstown Bank is now on our preferred list. (Total honesty always. The preferred list is the Jobstown Yellow Pages. Write “preferred” on the cover of yours before you dare touch that dial.)

Patti: I appreciate that. We work very hard for the Jobstown community.

What’s the Value Added Inventory, Ima?

You: We contact the best, most creative businesses in Jobstown and ask them to give us something they need done. Then, we find someone to do it. It can’t be any job that’s currently available.

Then when the person starts, we prepare a press release and photos. It’s picked up by TV, radio, and newspapers. The Jobstown Gazette is notified separately.

The only thing is, it can’t be a current job opening. We’re trying to show how our preferred-list businesses are really interested in solving their problems with local talent.

Patti: I really can’t—wait a minute. There is one thing that