Job hunters turn tables with a fair of their own

Darcy Zulpo, a human resources executive at a software firm, is used to wading through stacks of resumes, looking for a victim of the technology layoffs to rescue with a job offer.

By Darlene Gavron Stevens
Special to the Tribune

But until last week, she never had a group of applicants convince her to come to them before she had seen their resumes.

That was the strategy behind the Reverse Job Fair, the creation of a group of out-of-work executives who decided to turn the tables on employers and invite them to the free event at Naperville’s Municipal Center.

The location was chosen, in part, because of the mass exodus of high-tech jobs in and around the west suburb. The economic downturn has forced some former executives who live in the area to take side jobs–from caddying and chauffeuring to department store sales–while trying to get their careers back on track.

Zulpo had been looking to fill at least two management positions for Smart Signal, a technology software company based in Lisle, when she got a call from an out-of-work executive asking her to attend the Reverse Job Fair.

"I came because it was a new concept, it sounded creative, and creativity is important to me in a potential employee," said Zulpo as she departed the fair Thursday.

"I met someone whose resume I might have passed over if I hadn’t talked to her about her skills. To me it was worth it," she said.

The prospective interviewee, engineer Kristine Salmen, had worked for months helping coordinate the fair, an effort presented by the Idea Group, a non-profit job-networking club in the west suburbs.

Tired of sending out hundreds of resumes and rehashing the same job-hunting tips, salesman A.J. Slapak and about a dozen fellow job club members decided in November to take a more proactive approach to their search.

"It got to be a joke, `Let’s target three new companies each week,’ and going over the same things over and over," said Slapak, of Lisle, who two years ago lost his sales management position in a merger.

Career development experts say it is not uncommon for applicants to do unusual things to make themselves stand out from the crowd.

Anita Brick, director of the MBA Career Advancement Program at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, applauded the effort.

"It’s important to try things," said Brick. "This is giving them visibility, and that in and of itself is an important thing."

Ground rules

The fair’s ground rules and preparations were as elaborate as the executive backgrounds of the attendees. Each participant was assigned a role that matched his or her expertise.

Attendance was limited to 150 job hunters. The final tally showed the average age of attendees was 50, with a salary history of about $70,000. The salaries the attendees were seeking ranged from $50,000 to $150,000.

Eighty-five percent of the job hunters were men. They were mechanical and chemical engineers, software designers, architecture and infrastructure specialists, PhD’s and project managers who used to make hiring decisions of their own. The majority worked in information technology, closely followed by sales, according to Slapak.

The job hunters said they have been getting by on severance pay, unemployment and side jobs such as consulting. One former IT worker said he was glad to take a job caddying at the local golf course because of the networking possibilities.

Another, Anthony Osude of Crystal Lake, a father of six, said his wife went back to work as a medical technician while he job hunted. He said the fair gave him hope–and a chance to do a quick hands-on project.

Osude, a software engineering manager, helped make a spreadsheet specifying the skill sets of the IT job hunters. He said he didn’t mind paying the $20 entry fee to cover the cost of materials. Potential employers attended free.

Committees assigned the jobs required for the fair. Software experts helped make a database of more than 9,000 companies with $5 million to $500 million in sales, said the fair’s spokesman, Jerry Koncel, an editor and writer who has been looking for a full-time spot since losing his job in December 2001.

Employers were narrowed to those located within 50 miles of Naperville. The final list of 5,000 companies was parceled out. One team was ordered to cold-call at least 100 employers, following a telemarketing script devised by another committee.

"We told the employers there would be no pressure and no paper," said Koncel. "There would be no resumes, no applications, just a chance for each side to talk to one another."

Slapak said he even got the name, Reverse Job Fair, trademarked so that the idea could not be duplicated in Illinois.

Eight areas at the fair were color-coded by career category: blue for information technology, green for finance, brown for sales. The morning featured the most activity. More than a dozen employers milled about the tables, conducting informal group interviews and occasionally requesting a one-on-one session.

By 1 p.m. the job hunters found themselves offering encouragement to each other and swapping war stories.

Former days

At the IT table, Lisa Davis, Judith DiVita and Marty Farrington reminisced of the career heydays, when IT workers were lured with huge sign-on bonuses and other incentives.

Pamela Buckley, 44, recalled the weeks leading up to her November layoff as a manager at Lucent Technologies Inc., where she had worked her way up from a mailroom employee.

"I took about five weeks to do my grieving, and now I’m ready to move on to the next level," said Buckley. "This could work out better for me."

Michael Lovelace, director of management information systems for Silvon Software in Westmont, spent the morning at the IT table, standing with his back against a wall as a controlled cluster of job hunters presented their cases.

Lovelace has one solid opening in the $50,000 range–his department’s first in three years.

"To be honest, a lot of these people are desperate for jobs, and the employers are in the driver’s seat," he said. "I’ll look at the resumes [on disk] and find out if there’s a match."

At the end of the day, organizer Slapak beamed as he looked over the pile of exit surveys filled out by the 35 employers who attended. More than 100 had promised to come, but Slapak was not disappointed.

After talking to other organizers, Slapak determined that job seekers got about 40 new, solid contacts from the fair.

"We’ll be meeting next week to talk about what we can do better next time," he said.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

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