On Thursday, March 9, 40Plus held its first ever Resume Swap and Speed Networking event as an experiment during our evening networking session.  The event was attended by about 40 people and about 30 participated in this new exercise.  Preliminary feedback was very positive, but with some great suggestions about how to enhance the format.  We will be refining the concept based on this feedback, and plan to host an even better event in a few months.  Watch this space!

The event was designed to be fun, and also and to bring home certain truths about the way things work:

1.  Employers and recruiters spend very little time reviewing a resume.

2.  In most networking situations you have a very short time to make a good impression.

3.  Making a good impression is easier if you are prepared to quickly and compellingly convey concrete achievements.

The skills to manage these realities are the heart of the 40Plus training curriculum which has been helping mid-career professionals find new opportunities since 1953.

Our event started out with one of our favorite sounds: the wonderful 40Plus ship’s bell sounded as a graduate of our most recent class, Edmund Fleet, has found a great new job and ‘rang in’ the event with panache.  Our heartiest congratulations to Edmund.  During the rest of the event, our Deputy Director got to commune with his inner 3-year old, ringing the bell repeatedly to move the participants from one task to the next as we rushed the participants through 5 rounds of very fast resume review and networking.

Hope to see you at the next one!