Job clubs can help, but only so much

A friendly welcome, a hot cup of coffee and a lead or two are the stock in trade at these free meetings.
If your job club meets at a church or synagogue, it is almost certainly run by volunteers and might be faith-based in nature.

Tess Frost, a former human resources professional, started the job search outreach at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., 23 years ago when she noticed fellow parishioners struggling with employment. She and a team of volunteers now meet with up to 40 job seekers a week, leading them in job search tasks and prayer.

At Colonial Church of Edina, Minn., the weekly job club does not include prayer, but facilitator Joe Oliver considers the program a ministry. After nearly 30 years running the job club, Oliver says it is this sense of mission that keeps the task exciting and rewarding.
In addition to houses of worship, you can also find job clubs at some government offices, colleges and nonprofit agencies. To find a job club nearby, call these institutions directly or check the meeting notices in the business section of the newspaper.

Here are some ideas for making the job club experience fruitful for you:

-- Bring a notebook and copies of your resume. Whether you are listening to a speaker or learning to write cover letters, note-taking is a good habit.
-- Set goals for the meeting. You should learn something that you will apply to your job search, get a lead that you will look into, or meet one or two people who can offer you further ideas. If your job club meeting does not measure up to these standards, move on to another group.

-- Challenge yourself. Why are you attending? If you go home feeling as if you learned nothing, dig deeper. Were you paying attention? Did you participate? Did you arrive on time and stay to the end? Did you introduce yourself to others?

-- Don't assume that three job clubs are better than one. At some point, enough is enough. If you are spending every evening at a meeting, you may be robbing your actual job search of its energy.

-- Be careful. One thing I have noticed with dismay is the tendency of job clubs to do exactly what they set out to do: Make job seekers feel better. This is a blessing that can turn sour.

On the one hand, it is a great comfort to hear others' stories and know you are not alone. But if too much of your time is spent with people who are out of work, perceptions begin to distort.

Instead of a 5 percent unemployment rate, you begin to feel as if the entire city is looking for a job. Worse, you can start to think it is someone else's fault you are unemployed or that it's normal to be out of a job for months on end.