Reflections from a Pink Slip Party

…wow.

Just…wow.

What a great event last Thursday night.  In all due seriousness, we want to give a collective “thank you” to Dice.com, the IT Section of the Michigan Bar Association, and of course all of the recruiters and job seekers that showed up and made for such a phenomenal evening.  I also want to thank the folks that called in advance – those for whom the event was designed and wanted more information about attending, as well as those that, well, just aren’t in our target demographic and were gracious enough to understand that and stay away.

Not that we didn’t have a few run-ins anyway…

…like the Aflac guy (yeah, you know who you are and why you’re not allowed in) who showed up and insisted that he was told to be there…but when pressed by the simple question of “Really?  Who told you that?” …went slinking away into the night.  Fail.

…or the folks from, oh, let’s just call it a fairly known tax preparation firm who had apparently been at the bar since noon and thought it would be a riot to try and get their tab tacked onto ours and come drink on us all night.  Fail.

…and to the recruiters that wound up talking with the organizers of another group who didn’t see the need to correct their assumption they were talking to the right people…sorry.  They’re kind of losers that way, apparently.  Now you know where we are and how to find us though, so hopefully we won’t see that happen again.

All in all, it was a great night.  We had a ton of recruiters show up…in fact, at several points in the evening it seemed like there were more recruiters floating around and comparing notes with each other than there were job seekers or anyone else.  With the natural flow of the evening though, there were plenty of folks floating around looking for gigs, and we’ve already heard about several interviews that have not only been scheduled, but in two cases have already taken place…so here’s to hoping that we’ll get our first hire from this event quickly.

Speaking of hires…we learned of a few more while at the event and chatting with people, so we’re well over 200 now!  Most importantly…just to hammer the point home yet again that networking should be very large on your radar and paid attention to…several of those hires came about as a result of relationships that have been established at our events more than anything else.  And so as we wish a few folks “good luck” in their new (pretty senior level, by the way) positions…we also want to beat you over the head yet again with the message that if you want to get the most out of this group and our events, you have to be at our events.  Firing off resumes and posting jobs in our LinkedIn group is a great start…but for job seekers, is emailing a resume any different than what you’re already doing that isn’t working?  For recruiters, haven’t almost all of you told us that your “ideal” candidate is probably already working somewhere…and how likely is it that someone’s going to get out of their recliner for a random cold call or someone with whom they haven’t had any face time or developed a relationship?

A few of the students from the class I spoke to earlier in the month showed up, which was nice to see.

Also great to see were the results of people reading our site and listening to us.  Many came armed with business cards.  Several had a full-blown “to do” list when they walked in the door of people that they absolutely wanted to find so they could have a chat.

The always jovial Brad from Mojohost showed up again with a few folks in tow, and as the tab from Dice.com closed up, picked up the tab on his own for the room for a while.  At this point, we kind of suck if we didn’t give him something of a plug…so, seriously, if you’re looking for hosting here in the metro Detroit area (or anywhere, really…he’s global at this point), check out Mojohost.

So…yeah, all in all, a really great night.

We look forward to seeing you at future events.  Our next will be one of our casual networking events on May 19th over at the BlackFinn in Royal Oak, so come on out, say “hi”, and let’s see what we can do to help you find what you’re looking for.

As always, jobs are in the LinkedIn group, and while we’re off planning future events, you can check out some photos from this past one on our Facebook page.  And just to close out, yet again – a collective “thank you” to Dice.com, the IT Section of the Michigan Bar Association, and of course all of the recruiters and job seekers that showed up.  We really appreciate your participation, and we’re glad our events can help.

Bob, Dave and Jeff
ITintheD.com
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