New North Star Job Club

It’s Monday morning, I hear the main door open, and I look up with a gentle smile as I greet our first clients coming into the office. “Hello, come on in. Are you here for the North Star Job Club?” I ask them from our front desk. “Come on into the workshop room. The career coaches will be with you shortly.” It’s a bit after 10 am and I can hear the incessant chatter already. I can tell they are connecting. Patrick and Simran bring freshly brewed coffee and a new session starts. I’m on the phone answering calls and booking appointments and I enjoy hearing their laughter and I wonder what they are laughing about.”

It's been a long time since Angela, our Administrative Assistant, could hear our clients talking and laughing in our office. It's been a long time since some of our clients were able to meet other immigrant professionals and benefit from face-to face interactions. It's been a long time of craving connections with new people.  
In the book What Color is Your Parachute? Richard Nelson Bolles explains that joining a job club has proven to have an 84% success rate. “That’s a success rate that is over 11 times higher than if you just sent out resumes.” (Bolles, 2009, p.36)
This summer we ventured to offer a new service, our North Star Job Club. The first job club session ran in May and our participants quickly engaged with each other by sharing their own job search experiences. The North Star Job Club helps participants navigate their job search and provides an opportunity to network in-person. Each week participants suggest topics for the upcoming sessions that are of interest to them. One of the topics of interest was intercultural communication. In August, Veena Zarour-Murthy, an instructor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion with the School of Global Access, Bow Valley College presented on intercultural communication and conflict management in the Canadian workplace. Everyone was so invested in the conversation that the session ran longer than scheduled. 
In the North Star Job Club sessions our clients have found inspiration to start a new week, shared with other immigrant professionals what skills and strategies have worked for them and maintained momentum in their job search. The idea is to move from the lack of motivation Mondays may bring to a highly energetic start of the week. 
If you are an immigrant professional looking for a job and would like to join our North Star Job Club, call our office at 403-770-5155. Angela will be happy to welcome you for our next session.

Reference: Bolles, R. (2009). What Color is Your Parachute?