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RE: swiss-list: Help! Swiss Engineer Living in LA -Long Beach

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RE: swiss-list: Help! Swiss Engineer Living in LA -Long Beach

From: Cornelius Fichtner <click for textversion of email address >
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:32:43 -0700
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2616

Adriano,

I live in Irvine, CA and have been unemployed from Feb.03-Jan.04. I
moved to California at the end of December 2002 to take a position with
the California branch office of my company in Switzerland. I knew ahead
of time that I would probably be laid off quite soon, but my wife is
from the USA and we had wanted to move. So I seized the opportunity and
moved to Orange County anyway.

In the beginning of my unemployment, I did not want to change my Swiss
C.V. to a US-style resume. I felt that these resumes here are very
show-offish. Every US-resume I saw looked like the person behind it was
the best thing sinced sliced bread. So I kept using my Swiss C.V. with
not much luck.

I realized rather quickly though, that 85% of all jobs here in the USA
are not found via job ads or in online job-boards. They are found via
networking. That is why I became a member of my professional
organization here in southern California. I stopped by at
http://www.vistaprint.com, had my own business cards printed and began
meeting people in my own profession. Over the next 6 months, I
volunteered a lot and built up a huge network of colleagues in my own
field. (I am keeping this up even today.)

In October I heard of an organization called experience unlimited. They
are a "job networking club" which is sponsored by the state of
California. Their services are absolutely free for residents of this
state. I went to their offices in Mission Viejo
(http://www.eumv.com/index.php). There are other offices, Mission Viejo
is said to be the best. They have a week long program during which they
teach you how to write an excellent resume, how to network right and you
learn to improve your interview skills. I highly recommend this
organization to anyone in California.

(In the meantime by the way, my wife found a job on a website, applied,
interviewed and got in. She was one of the "other" 15%).

After experience unlimited, I realized that an employer here in CA will
receive 200-500 resumes for every single job that is open. So the most
important function of a resume is to catch the attention of the person
sorting through this mountain of paper. You want your resume to stand
out. I learned at experience unlimited what is important and how to
adapt my resume to the job I am applying for. In the end I had to decide
between 2 jobs. One I found through networking, the other thanks to my
new and improved "US-style" resume.

We live quite close to each other, so let me know if you want to have
lunch some day. I'd be more than happy to meet and chat.

Cornelius

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Received on Mon Sep 20 2004 - 23:30:50 PDT

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