By Jeffrey J. Kraus
The 37-year-old Richmonder had been working as the head of college recruitment for Circuit City for a year and had already watched her friends around the office lose their jobs. When the CEO got choked up and began reaching for tissues while announcing the company's demise last month, it hit her too.
“The next thing you know, I’m crying. I’m like, I was totally laughing on the way here. I knew I was getting laid-off. But it just got to be so emotional," said Reese. "It was like, wow, this is affecting a lot of people and I don’t have a job anymore.”
The Greater Richmond Partnership is trying to help Reese, and others like her, stay in town. The economic development organization unveiled this week a new Web site, www.Richmondjobnet.com, that has a simple mission, according to Sara Dunnigan, the partnership's vice president of existing business services.
"What we want to do is help Richmonders find jobs in Richmond," said Dunnigan.
Circuit City will continue to pay Reese until the middle of March, but losing her job is already leading to lifestyle changes for Reese. The self-described "major shopaholic" says she is no longer using her credit cards.
Reese spends much of her time job hunting, mostly from behind her keyboard.
“I’ll put a status on my Facebook page and I’ll get leads that way," Reese said. "I’ll say something like oh, 'Day three without a job,' and the next thing you know, I’ll have ten messages from people saying have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?”
The problem is many of those suggestions are outside Virginia. Her best lead at the moment is a job in Pittsburgh that would allow her to work remotely from Richmond. That is the only reason she is pursuing it. Reese does not want to leave.
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“I don’t feel that full panic like I suddenly have to go and relocate. I have a mortgage. I have dogs. I have a life here in Richmond. I’ve been here since 1995 and this is my home,” said Reese. "Staying in Richmond is my number one priority. I don't want to leave Richmond."
A new resource for unemployed Richmonders
Dunnigan says the recession is adding a new challenge to what organizations like hers does. Over the past decade or so, the catchy buzz phrase has been "brain drain," which meant losing young, educated and talented people from an area's workforce. But the challenge has expanded to include talented people in all phases of their career.
“We’re in a different position now. The risk is that we’re not losing young talent, but we may lose some of the most experienced professionals, some of the most highly educated folks who tend to be more mobile anyway. We want to help them keep their job search focused on Richmond,” said Dunnigan.
The Web site, which is free to use, attempts to connect out-of-work Richmonders with Richmond employers who are seeking to hire. Dunnigan says small and mid-size businesses account for about 80 percent of the hiring that is now occurring.
“We want to alleviate frictional unemployment, unemployment that lasts longer than it should not because there aren’t jobs out there but because people can’t find them, or they don’t know about them,” said Dunnigan.
The Web site allows people to post a resume, but also takes advantage of existing online resources to help users network better with people and companies within a 50-mile radius of Richmond. That includes using established networks from the professionally-oriented social media Web site, LinkedIn; group pages on Facebook; a following on Twitter; connections with other established Richmond job listing Web pages; and a Richmond-filtered window to sites like CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com. The Richmondjobnet.com Web site also includes tutorials on how to use all of those tools.
“It’s a necessity. If you look at the way the recruiting world is working today, they’re hiring people straight off of LinkedIn. They’re looking for you on Facebook. If you’re not out there it’s just going to be more challenging,” said Dunnigan.
The Web site's Twitter component already had 100 followers before its formal launch - a number that Dunnigan wants to double every month. And in just two days, more than 500 Richmonders had registered on the site.
"If we can work with the area business community and say as you are doing recruiting if you could hire just one of these people who’ve been affected by downsizing, we could completely re-absorb this talent in our market, keep it here and provide some exceptional talent to small and mid-size businesses that are looking to grow,” said Dunnigan.
Unemployment is hitting Richmond hard
The Web site is launching during a challenging time for the Richmond area. In December, the Richmond unemployment rate was 5.5 percent, just above the state rate of 5.2 percent, according to the Virginia Employment Commission.
"The recession has finally hit Richmond," said Don Lillywhite, the VEC's research director. "Richmond typically fares better than the rest of the state. Now it's doing worse. Of the 15,000 announced job cuts across Virginia in the last six months, more than half of them have come from the Richmond area."
Susan Hayden says she might be directing her children to the RichmondJobNet.com Web site. The state government employee lives in Chesterfield County and has a daughter who will be graduating from the College of William & Mary this spring.
"I might send it to her so she can see what's available here," said Hayden. "She should do what she needs to do, though I would like for her to stay around. Some of her friends who graduated in the last year or two are being laid off now, including one who was a public school teacher."
Networking is the key to successful job hunting
Hayden says networking is the key to building a career regardless of what the economy is doing.
Wynne Reese agrees and is witnessing first-hand how much harder it is for people who haven't been doing that.
“A lot of my friends are in creative fields. They are in marketing or they are in PR or recruiting. So many of them have been laid off in the last year. Some of them are trying to switch fields and they are not necessarily natural networkers and they’re having a really tough time," said Reese.
Sara Dunnigan says she tells people all of the time that they should spend significant time networking and while the Greater Richmond Partnership's new Web site will help people do that, no one should think that's all they have to do to get the next job.
"People still hire people, so the relationships are still important. I don’t think any of the online, social media personage is going to replace getting to know a business, a hiring manager, getting to know someone who works in the business you want to work in. Those are just invaluable relationships," said Dunnigan.
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