GSETA

Breakout Session III: US Conference of Mayors Workshop on Summer Employment

Michele Martin attended the U.S. Conference of Mayor's Workshop on Using the Federal Stimulus to support youth summer employment on February 25. These notes are from the 3rd breakout session.

Marketing and Outreach
Clyde McQueen, Full Employment Council, Kansas City, MO

Should have an elevator speech for all staff--give same message to everyone. Collective branding opportunity. Have kids wearing same shirts/colors, logo, etc.

Capture success stories to tell tale of summer employment--pictures, videos, etc. (GSETA could sponsor something)

Have kids work on projects that can leave a legacy in the community--i.e., building a gazebo, etc.

Find a champion in community who will be “face” of program.

Get LEOs and everyone else  on message.

Elevator Speech--EVERYONE should have this. Everyone needs to be saying the same thing.

• Overall objective--”We want to place 1,300 youth, aged 16-24, into summer internships with quality jobs.” (They are focused on calling it an internship to emphasize developmental nature of activity)

• How? “We want to collaborate with nonprofits, businesses, FBOs to accomplish this.

• When?--timeframe

• What do you need?--i.e., quality work sites, etc.

Stakeholder Outreach

• Who are they?
• What do you need from them?
• How can they benefit?

Examples:

• One Stop Partners
• Job Corps
• TANF
• State, City and County Governments
• Housing Authority
• Head Start and Weatherization programs
• Junior Achievement
• Boys and Girls Clubs, etc.
• CBOs and FBOS
• Contractors

LEO Outreach

• Hold business sessions at City Council
• Make presentations to county commissions, Boards of Education
• State representatives
• Objective is to inform so that they can inform their constituents
• Ensure that they are aware of program guidelines--CRITICAL
• Have one pager outlining program requirements, websites, office locations, etc.

Business Outreach--have one pager

• Chambers
• EDCs
• Business Associations
• Private sector jobs
• Mentors
• Career outlook

Youth Outreach
--Have eligibility envelopes, one page description

• Schools
• CBOs
• GED/ABE sites
• TANF Mailing list
• YMCA
• Boys/Girls Clubs
• Community Colleges, Vocational Institutions, Camps
• Alternative Institutions

Marketing Tactics/Strategies

• Saturday work days
• Extended hours
• Outreach events--career fairs, joint events with CBOs/FBOs etc.
• Radio/On-site
• Spring break events
• Food
• User-friendly handouts

Staffing

• Everyone has an elevator speech
• Complete outreach training for staff
• Review do’s and don’ts
• Designate goals for each effort
• Designate outreach teams and team leaders
• Weekly feedback necessary.

Make sure staff understand that they can’t service own family members.

FEDS watching eligibility, is it meaningful work, nepotism and are they actually working?

Eligibility--can use free and reduced lunch lists as starting point, but will have to do WIA eligibility documentation.

Need to be pro-active in marketing successes--hire youth to document the stories, take photos, do video, etc.

Don’t scrimp on staffing--hiring program/adult staff is about getting money into communities too.

Breakout Session II: US Conference of Mayors Workshop on Summer Employment

Michele Martin attended the U.S. Conference of Mayor's Workshop on Using the Federal Stimulus to support youth summer employment on February 25. These notes are from the 2nd breakout session.

Program Planning and Staffing
Conny Doty--Boston

Timeline
•Have to do procurement.
•Payroll infrastructure is CRITICAL--this is where the scandals come from. Not like running a “normal” payroll. Hire professionals!
•Registering and eligibility determination of youth participants
•Worksite selection--Site development
•Staff training
•Student training
•Weekly check-ins with program operators

Be careful about managing WIA and stimulus at the same time, especially if using contractors who normally manage the WIA. Will be big temptation to let WIA performance drop.

Program Procurement--to include in RFP/RFQ:
(Boston going with RFQ)
•Experience with targeted population and program activities
•Outreach, registration and eligibility determination--who how
•Intake and assessment--who and how?
•Recruitment and supervision/monitoring of worksites
•Timesheet and payroll capacity
•Training for program and administrative staff
•Data tracking and reporting capacity

Budgeting
FYI- $1.2 Billion came from the idea that lawmakers wanted to put 1 million youth to work this summer and it costs, on average, $1,200 in wages to do this.
Youth wages: State minimum wage X number of hours per week X number of weeks

Program coordinators, supervisors, other direct service staff (adult wages)
Payroll Admin--FICA, etc.

Administration--monitors, planners, finance, etc.

Insurance--workers comp

Timesheets--control the number of timesheets each site receives--only get number of slips for number of youth at their site. No opportunity for fraud, etc. Good checks/balances. MONITOR!!

Hire a payroll administrator!

***This is a great opportunity to teach financial literacy to youth--teachable moments with every paycheck. Look for partnerships with banks to open accounts, etc.

Program Staffing
•Administrative Team

•Summer Monitors
•Youth Program Administrators
•Finance
•Youth Planners

•Program Team

•Coordinator
•Site monitors
•Site supervisors
•Instructors for additional program elements

Teachers, college grads/students are good summer hires

SOURCES OF POTENTIAL SCANDAL--Payroll abuses; no criminal background checks for people working with youth.

Supervisor Training
In Boston, paying $15/hour for staff--will share job descriptions
•Identify candidates committed to working with pop
•Interactive/hands-on training with youth staff leading/participating
•Clear goals and expectations for program outcomes--for example, we’re focusing on work experience, etc.
•Topics--team leadership, project and partner management, safety and documentation, youth development
•Ongoing support, supervision and training as needed throughout the summer--team meetings, etc.

Program Outcomes
Work Readiness--MA is using MA Work-based Learning Plan--
www.skillslibrary.com/wbl.htm

DO MAJOR DOCUMENTATION of work readiness credential attainment in participant’s case file. Need guidance from state on what will be acceptable.

Other elements for consideration
•Financial literacy
•Educational upgrades
•Career Exploration
•Teamwork, collaboration and conflict resolution

Have to seriously consider capacity to deliver some of these things. Could be delivered via traveling workshops that visit the different worksites, etc.

During spring break--Boston uses HR people to do 15 minute interviews with students--way to get businesses involved.

Get elected officials involved in the process--make it easy for them to get involved. Give them packets of information.

Breakout Session I: US Conference of Mayors Workshop on Summer Employment

Michele Martin attended the U.S. Conference of Mayor's Workshop on Using the Federal Stimulus to support youth summer employment on February 25. These notes are from the 1st breakout session.


Program Design, Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation

Karen Sitnick, Director, Mayors Office of Employment Development, Baltimore ksitnick@oedworks.com

410-396-1910

Lisa Salazar, Director, One Source Youth Opportunity System, Community Development Department, Los Angeles

lisa.salazar@lacity.org

213-744-7191

hirelayouth.org

No one way to do a summer jobs program--cobble together the components

Program Basics

LA--

• Some subcontracting and some direct running of programs

• 6 week employment program--120-140 hours, 5-6 hour days. Can work up to 6 hours without a lunch break, so can keep things simpler.

• Paid $8/hour

• $2,000 per slot--$1500 goes to participant wages and supportive services and $500 for admin, etc.

Baltimore

• 6 weeks long, 30 hours per week. Sign in and out for lunch. Document hours kids works.

• Pay minimum wage

• 600 worksites across the city.

• Don’t pay CBOs to run programs. They have to apply to be a site and have to demonstrate that they will provide site supervision.

• $1400 per slot--because minimum wage is lower.

Models can vary depending on the mix of employers, CBOs, and other providers:

Multiple youth at one site/individual youth

Many cities do not subsidize youth wages in the private sector

Private sector employers commit to hiring X number of youth per summer; program acts as a broker matching youth to jobs

Many sites provide in-house supervision- program provider does not- program provider’s role is to “check in,” monitor, collect timesheets, etc.

Need to look at State Labor laws--work permits for between 14-17

Also look at industry-specific child labor laws.

Slot Allocation Methodology

LA--carefully lays out plan upfront. Does it based on percentage of youth in poverty by area and then first come, first served within those geographic regions.

Baltimore--First come, first-served. Market heavily--encourage kids to go to different sites across city to apply. Committed to provide jobs for everyone who had registered by deadline date, but now with income requirements, will have to go back and document.

Put hiring/recruitment process online, eligibility requirements, documents that you must submit, etc. Be clear in writing--”you have applied for a summer job. This does not guarantee a job”

Worksite Selection

• Look at documents in binder for specifics

• Clear with worksites that this is not a “make work” project--expect that there will be a valuable learning experience with career exploration, etc. That it will be safe.

• Baltimore including a focused mentoring component to worksites--providing mentoring training to worksite supervisors (contracted out) TRAINING FOR WORKSITE SUPERVISORS IS KEY AND IT IS CRITICAL TO SUCCESSFUL PROGRAM

• Work closely with Chamber of Commerce. (MARKETING--HIRE PA Campaign?)

• Have set up a large-scale campaign in Baltimore--Co-chair of committee is head of Outreach committee to employers

• Do large job fair

Workbased Learning Models

• Baltimore is pushing SCANS (calling it Skills for Success)--infused in every worksite; have to tell how they will help young people develop these skills.

• LA is running Learn and Earn--1/2 day school and 1/2 of work experience. Learning is focused on improving performance on State tests. Also did something with childcare. Went to school for 4 days then on Fridays, did work experience at after-school provider. Looking to expand to other industries.

• Many kids have to go to summer school--could look at doing a combined program--pay them to go to summer school and then do work onsite at school.

Staffing

• Bringing in temporary summer staff--must be sure to provide training. People for data collection, program design, monitoring/evaluation and worksite supervisors.

• Must have comprehensive staff training program and manual that they can easily reference.

• Baltimore is working with UPS to help staff figure out how to do the distribution/logistics of monitoring several different worksites during the week, several times per week.

• Need timeline--over next 6 weeks, what will young people be doing for work activities. Include opportunities for job shadowing, learn more about organizations for which they’re working.

Participant Info/Training

• Need student participant manual

• Invite parents to attend some Orientation sessions--put expectations out front

• Some agencies use student contracts--at minimum have them sign statement about receiving booklet

• Explain pay dates--explain taxes and that taxes will be withheld so they know what they will be getting in their checks

Need to have a communication plan--able to respond to parent/student/grandparent calls, etc. CRITICAL

Supervisors sign MOU that clearly defines expectations.

Have a statement of Maintenance of Effort--Statement that kids are not replacing regular full-time workers. Copy is in binder.

Monitoring

• LA--Survey students and worksite supervisors--do a sampling (20%)--do it at beginning and end.

• Baltimore--Visit sites before it starts, then have form they complete when they visit 3 times per week and then have form they complete at end of session. Require reports get submitted that day.

Sites evaluate youth--need to do it for evaluating work readiness measure--look at what tool can be used.

LA--has brief evaluation on timesheet so students get constant feedback.

Payroll

• Daily sign-in sheets

• Field monitors deliver checks to students in field--students sign for their checks

Organizational Chart/Staffing

Baltimore--14-15 go with CBOs; These sites get visited frequently

16+ go through 12 hour work readiness training that lets them go to job fair and get matched with private sector jobs.

Work readiness--may be able to define for selves--In LA., attend a 4 hour work readiness training on getting/keeping a job, etc. In Baltimore, do ratings on SCANs. Need clarification from USDOL

Every adult has to have a background check!!! Worksite must have background check for their staff.

If using federal funds to subsidize private sector employment, will a background check be required?

Summer Youth Employment Planning Questions

Michele Martin attended the U.S. Conference of Mayor's Workshop on Using the Federal Stimulus to support youth summer employment on February 25. These planning questions are from one of the workshops.

At this point, we have approximately 18 weeks before we must begin implementation. It’s critical to begin planning NOW!

Some Key Decisions

What role will each partner play? Administrator? Program Operator? Both? What are roles and responsibilities of other key players? Key partners to consider include:

• One Stop Partners
• Job Corps
• TANF
• State, City and County Governments
• Housing Authority
• Head Start and Weatherization programs
• Junior Achievement
• Boys and Girls Clubs, etc.
• CBOs and FBOS
• Contractors

How will this fit in with other programming that’s currently happening?

Who are you going to serve? Age range? In school/out-of-school? Focus on certain neighborhoods? Focus on certain industries?

Timeframe--When do you want the money to be spent? (Feds want it to be spent ASAP)
One program session or two? May 1-September 30 are dates for summer employment, so could potentially run two different sessions for different populations.

Will you opt for more program outcomes than are required? Do you have the capacity to meet and support additional outcomes?

Will you be working with public sector only? Private sector?

What existing programs/initiatives can you tie into?

• Weatherization program--they are also receiving stimulus money

• Head Start--again, receiving money from stimulus

• Industry Partnerships--Earn and Learn activities?

How will you serve youth through stimulus AND WIA? Can be issues with coordinating, ensuring that performance outcomes for WIA are met.

How many staff will you need? What roles should they play? Don't skimp on staff! This can also be stimulus for dislocated workers. Better to have enough trained, quality staff in place. This will help avoid potential problems later.

Keynote from US Conference of Mayor's Workshop on Using ARRA Money for Youth Summer Employment

Michele Martin attended the U.S. Conference of Mayor's Workshop on Using the Federal Stimulus to support youth summer employment on February 25. These notes are from the keynote address.

Greg Weltz
Chief of Division of Youth Services, USDOLETA

Under the ARRA, $1.2 billion will be invested in providing employment solutions and opportunities for disadvantaged young people, ages 14-24, throughout the US.

We have approximately 18 weeks to plan and begin implementation of summer employment programming. Will need to make the most of every minute we have.

It's important to recognize that the stimulus funding is an ADD-ON to WIA--NOT a new program. As a result, the only two things that have changed are that the age limit for youth to be served has been extended to age 24 and youth served using stimulus funds ONLY have to meet the work readiness performance measure, not the other common measures. All eligibility requirements, documentation, etc. are the same!

Vision/Context
Primary purpose is to provide meaningful paid summer work experience, but education and supportive services are necessary as well and they fully support the intent of the legislation.

For Reauthorization of WIA, we need to consider how summer employment fits into the larger vision for serving youth. We need to position the programming we provide under the ARRA funding so that it supports this larger vision.
Need to use funds “quickly and wisely.” This summer is critical in terms of getting money into the hands of young people, in part because summer jobs are economically some of the purest form of stimulus we have. Young people will spend that money in their local economies immediately.

Also need to use money wisely. There will be a lot of scrutiny of our programs. This will be one of the first large-scale uses of stimulus funding and we need to be collectively concerned about and aware of how ALL our programs operate because the media and the eyes of the country will be upon us.

Expansion of eligibility to age 24 provides a tremendous opportunity to engage perhaps most vulnerable young people in our country. Those over 21 in this population have often not moved beyond where they left off when they were younger when they dropped out of school or graduated. This provides us with a chance to re-connect them to work and to education.

Components/Issues

Key performance measure for stimulus funds used between May 1 and September 30 for summer employment will be work readiness. USDOL will provide additional guidance on this, but ultimately local areas will have a fair amount of flexibility in terms of defining and measuring “work readiness.”

Should also be looking at how this can connect to other funding streams. For example, can stimulus summer employment potentially serve as a gateway to services provided through other funding streams, such as Adult WIA.

Think “green.” Look at models being used in Austin, TX, Case Verde, Richard Halrpin as ways to engage young people in the green movement.

Although focus is on simplicity and summer employment, don’t ignore critical value-add design elements from WIA, particularly individual service strategies, assessment, follow-up, linkages to education and other services, etc. These should still be used wisely and appropriately to support the overall goals.

Eligibility determination has been a major concern for most areas. WIA is clear that eligibility is not a waiver category. DOL is looking at ways to make things simpler, more streamlined, but these require approval from Inspector General. There are also issues of transparency and accountability that need to be considered in light of the intense scrutiny this funding and programming will receive both from the government and from the media.

Who is eligible will not and cannot change. The stimulus funding is being provided under WIA, so must fit in with those statutory requirements.

Procurement--If you are fiscal agent and plan to operate own programs, then you’re OK. USDOL is looking for some flexibility here. It’s challenging to find it because transparency/accountability requirements can’t give impression that there were problems with procurement process.

States and locals can use whatever sole source authority they believe is appropriate within their circumstances--can’t be dictated by Feds. Law says that all youth services have to be competitively procured, however. Feds looking at using current contracts--expand with additional resources? or do a look-back for past 12 months--not getting strong signals from Inspector General’s office that this will be OK

Reporting/Performance measures--Trying to keep it very simple. May be low-tech. Not looking for participant level data. Will be aggregate reporting. Will report primarily on data we already collect--characteristics, demographics, whether or not they participated in summer employment, did they participate in employment outside of the summer; numerator/denominator for work readiness indicator. Frequency of reporting hasn’t been determined. Definitely quarterly, possibly monthly. OMB needs to decide.

Timing of Guidance--Supposed to provide something on expectations within next 7-10 days.

Allotment TEGL and Planning/Policy Guidance TEGL--due around March 17th.

After that there will be the Reporting TEGL.

Technical Assistance--DOLETA staff will be out as much as possible.

Planning to do a series of National Webinars, 1st will be specifically on youth and summer employment. Then on program design elements; another on engaging employers in workplace; one on reporting.

There will be an email hotline that will be staffed to respond to questions from the field.

Money will come with same requirements for admin, etc. Money will technically be available through June 2011, but the goal is to get most of it out this summer. Again, this is STIMULUS, and it’s needed ASAP.

Personal Business Cards: A Tool Every Job Seeker Needs

One tool that many job seekers neglect to include in their arsenal is a personal business card. It's impossible (and bad form) to pass out a resume to every potential networking contact. But with a business card, job seekers can have a quick and easy way to share their contact information with everyone they meet.

Designing a Card
The purpose of a card is not only to introduce the job seeker and give people they meet a way to contact them later, but it's also to help job seekers stand out from the crowd. A nicely-designed and produced business card is going to say a lot about the job seekers brand, so it's worth it to spend some time doing something more creative.

Luckily there's been an explosion in the quality of cards in the past few years so there are a lot of really cool and interesting business card examples to stimulate a job seeker's thinking.  Here are some great examples to check out for ideas.

• This Flickr photoset
• Creative Bits
• Six Most Uniquely Creative Business Cards of SXSWi 2007
• Business Cards at Pile of Photos
• Creative Business Card Design Ideas
• Creative Business Cards from Blog Oh Blog

Some of these may be prohibitively expensive to produce and/or may be a little too far-out for a job seeker's particular identity. But there's a lot of space for inspiration here and plenty of ways to break out from the crowd using color, graphics and other design elements.

Producing the Cards
Depending on the complexity of the card, a job seeker can produce his/her own business cards with a printer and those perforated sheets of business cards they sell at Staples. This will do in a pinch, but if a job seeker is  going to be serious about their identity, they might as well spend a few bucks to get it right. In that case, you can go to Staples or Kinkos/FedEx and have them print up the cards.

Moo is another option.  You can do regular business cards, but Moo also lets you create mini cards that are 28x77 mm. A set of 100 is $19.99 and you can have up to 100 different images--so each card could actually be a different image if you wanted. You can then add up to 6 lines of text on the reverse. Here are some examples of Moo business cards. You can also create text only cards if you prefer. The quality of these cards is amazing. I use Moo for my own cards and consistently get comments from people on how nice they are.

Using Business Cards
So what do you do with your cards once you've printed them up? Well, there are the obvious uses--passing them out at conferences, networking events, etc. But a job seeker might also want to check out some of the ideas in these articles, 30 Creative Ways to Use Business Cards and 8 Ways to Use Your Business Cards to Network.

Get Inside HR's Head

As a former HR Manager with two large firms, I can tell you from personal experience that most job seekers do not understand how HR works. From what I can tell, they believe that HR managers have all the time in the world to carefully sift through their multi-page, closely-worded resume to find the nuggets of information that make them the perfect candidate for the job. They also believe that filling the position that the job seeker is applying for is the ONLY thing the HR manager is worried about. Both not true.

Effective job search requires job seekers to go inside HR's head. Job seekers must understand how the HR department works so they can then develop a job search strategy that fits with that process.

Here are some tips from two nice articles on the subject. First, from Susan Strayer's Understanding HR:

• Everything's governed by the law. There are dozens of laws that govern the hiring process, most designed to ensure equal access to jobs for all applicants. To get your foot in the door, you have to play by their rules.

• Know where your resume is going. Most employers, particularly those with over 50 employees, rarely accept paper resumes anymore. This means any job seeker's resume is going into a large pool of other resumes to be sorted through based on keywords. It also means that job seekers can't sit back and wait, hoping their resume will be noticed.

• Understand the role of the recruiter. Recruiters spearhead the hiring process for hiring managers. Job seekers need to make it easy for them to see in their 20-30 second scan of the resume that this job seeker will be successful.

• Be patient and own the process. Hiring for any one position is not the only thing on a recruiter's plate. At any given time, a recruiter will be involved in a million other activities as well. Job seekers need to be patient if recruiters don't get back to them right away, but they should also be sure to follow-up periodically.

• Make multiple contacts. Don't just rely on HR. Job seekers need to find other people within the organization who can champion their application.

• Respect the process owner. Do not try to circumvent HR altogether, though. They do have a say in hiring and doing an end run around HR can come back to haunt a job seeker.

And a few other thoughts from Why HR's Just Not That Into You:

• They only pursue candidates they are really interested in, WHEN THEY ARE READY TO HIRE. It can take months to move through the hiring process, especially in an economic downturn. If HR is interested, they will get in touch. It just may not be on the job seeker's personal timetable. 

• You are not their main priority. But then most job seekers SHOULD realize this. 

• HR does not have the time, money or resources to let every job seeker down easily. Every job seeker has the horror story of the ego-bashing letter they received indicating they were not the best candidate for the position. These can hurt, but job seekers need to just pick up and move on. They're also part of the game.

By understanding how HR operates, job seekers can avoid a lot of frustration and craft job search strategies that will be more effective.

10 Good Minutes: Some Great Podcasts for Job Search

10 Good Minutes regularly produces some excellent podcasts related to career and job search. Here are a few that might be particularly helpful to your job seekers.

• Using Twitter and Facebook for Job Search

• Phone Techniques for Job Search--turning a phone screen into a face-to-face interview and other tips for more effective use of the phone. 

• Strategies for Getting a Job With Little or No Experience

• Some Advice on Salary Negotiations

• Getting Noticed by Recruiters--Part One and Part Two

Note that job seekers can listen to the interviews directly from their computers or they can download each show to listen to on their iPod or mp3 player as they exercise, drive, take the train, etc.

What Jobs Will the Stimulus Package Create?

According to job search site, Jobfox, here are some of the jobs most likely to be created under the Obama stimulus package. Which ones is your WIB area prepared to support? What can you start doing to prepare local job seekers for these new opportunities?

Initiative: Construction of Roads, Bridges, Transit and Rural Broadband

Key Jobs:

1. Construction managers
2. Project managers
3. Civil engineers
4. Computer-aided drafting specialists
5. Telecommunications engineers

Initiative: Greater Oversight of Financial Markets

Key Jobs:

1. Compliance accountants
2. Internal auditors
3. Tax accountants
4. Government regulators

Initiative: Energy Independence

Key Jobs:

1. Electrical engineers
2. Mechanical engineers
3. Power grid managers
4. Biofuels chemists
5. Sales and marketing

Initiative: Healthcare Modernization

Key Jobs:

1. Nurses
2. Information technology specialists
3. Bioinformatics specialists
4. Information security specialists
5. Software developers

Initiative: Volunteerism and Community Involvement

Key Jobs:

1. Social workers
2. Administrators
3. Translators

Email Networking Tips

Most people get their jobs because of connections--they know someone or know someone who has a friend who knows someone. Even when people apply through traditional avenues, such as job boards, they are more likely to receive an invitation to interview if they are personally recommended by someone known to the employer. That's why email networking can be extremely effective for job seekers, but only when done properly. Here are some tips for getting the most out of email networking

• Alert all your contacts that you are job searching--The rule of networking is to cast a broad net. Job seekers should let everyone from their pastor to their former colleagues know that they are in the market for a new job.

• Personalize your emails--Although job seekers will be tempted to save time by sending out a generic email to everyone they know, this tactic is much less likely to get results. Just like broadcast job search letters sent indiscriminately to companies tend to have a low success rate, broadcast networking emails are equally unsuccessful. Job seekers should take the time to address each person individually, referring to  details that cement the personal connections and make the recipient feel special. 

• Let your contacts know the kind of opportunities you're looking for--Job seekers should be specific about the types of work they want and the types of companies that interest them. This will help contacts make the best referrals.

• Be specific about how the contact can help--People like to know what they're being asked to do, so email networkers should provide some specific actions to take. These can include forwarding the job seeker's resume to people who might be interested or providing the job seeker with potential contacts at companies where they job seeker wants to apply.

• Give something in return--We are always more open to giving something to someone else if they give us something too. Where possible, job seekers should offer to provide some specific help--"I'm happy to forward your resume to some people if that would be helpful." At a minimum, they should close with some generic offer to support the networking contact if they have something they need from the job seeker. 

• Attach a copy of your resume--This gives networking contacts some info to share with others and also provides them with more details on the job seeker.

Email can be a great way to network for the next job, but like every job search technique, you have to be sure to do it right.