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Politics & Government

Record Turnout for Job 'Boot Camp'

Job seekers get new ideas, new skills and a morale boost.

One might reasonably assume a network administrator would have the ideal skills to land a job in 2011.

Not so, said George Smith, a silver-haired man who attended yesterday’s “Job Hunter’s Boot Camp” at the South San Francisco Conference Center in a dark gray business suit. But he felt decidedly upbeat after a session on overcoming age bias.

“Update your skills, stay away from age references in your resume, keep it to 15 years or less,” he said, reading aloud the notes he’d penciled on a legal pad.

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It was the seventh such event hosted by U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, and it drew a record number of people from throughout the county  – whether because more are out of work or because the good buzz has generated a following.

“Now, they all bring a friend,” said Katie Ferrick, field rep for the Peninsula congresswoman.

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More than 20 recruiters turned out from businesses and nonprofit organizations looking to add staff, but participants flooded to the workshops.

A standing-room-only crowd packed into a hall for the session on overcoming age bias, in which Camille Grabowski showed them how to assemble a functional resume instead of a chronological resume.

A smaller group assembled for “Social Networking for the Uncomfortable.” And 200 queued up for one-on-one resume overhauls with career consultants.

Sylvia Azua’s resume summed up her experiences as a customer service representative on a single page, touching only briefly on her ability to translate and to oversee and assign volunteers.

“No two resumes will look the same,” the consultant told her. “You need to tailor your resume to the job.”

Azua is “one of the lucky ones,” he said – she still has a job but senses she could do better.

Aleesha Garcia has been out of work only a few weeks. A medical assistant who has also taught, Garcia found her last job too isolating.

“I like to help people,” she said. “Being too isolated is bad for your mental health.”

In fact, it’s bad for job seekers’ mental health too, consultants said.

“I know the jobs are there,” said recruiter Donna Fedor. “There are four job seekers for every open position. You’ve got to know you’re the right person for the job. But you can’t do that if you don’t like what you see in the mirror.

“And most job seekers isolate. When you’re in your house at your computer, you’re not giving yourself a chance.”

Veterans got special attention from consultants who helped them translate their experiences into peacetime skills, and pitches from numerous recruiters.

And representatives of a myriad agencies answered questions about training, unemployment insurance, and support services. LinkedIn set up a photo booth to help get job seekers into the social networking scene.

Most seemed cheered to learn they were not alone. In the opening session, Jim Thomas described his journey from job seeker to a happily employed person with “a job I love” after attending an earlier Boot Camp (Speier rotates them between College of San Mateo, the San Mateo County Fairgrounds, and the South San Francisco Conference Center). Then Speier asked people to raise their hands if they’d been out of work for a month, six months, 18 months.

“It’s funny the things you laugh about when you’re with other people who are in the same boat,” one woman said to her companion.

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