Pink Slip Mixers

Last week I went to my first Pink Slip Mixer. Another friend who is unemployed had told me about pinkslipmixers.com so I checked it out. I even told another friend who is unemployed and we agreed to meet there. The one last week was in Pasadena. Many of the folks had been unemployed so long that I, at 6 weeks, was definitely the "newbie".

I am reflecting on last week's mixer because the next event is tomorrow night at the ESPN Zone at LA Live downtown. Here are the reasons that I, and I think you, should go:

1) Edwin, the organizer, is himself unemployed and doing this all on the "pay it forward" principle. He gets the venue to donate the space, everyone comes and brings their friends and buys drinks &/or food.

2) It's nice to have the support of other people who are unemployed when you are looking. You know there are more people out there just like you. And that is a great morale booster.

3)Plus, while you're job hunting for yourself, you often find jobs that might interest others. I myself have found several jobs for some of the folks I met last week.

4)Recruiters or hiring managers can come and find a wealth of different people with different skills for whatever positions they might need to fill. At last week's mixer, we had a CEO, an Executive Assistant, an IT person, an HR person, a sales person, two marketing people, two PR people, an accountant, a business development person, and a banker. Practically a whole staff for a small company!

So, I'm going to check my schedule tomorrow and see if I can fit in the event at ESPN Zone LA Live 6-9pm.

Maybe I will see you there!