Iris Seeley November, 2020

Discover Your Work Personality

Imagine what it would be like if you could find out what next position you were meant to do!
Being able to get a sense of direction and narrow down the very many options in the world of work can be a strong stimulus to finding a satisfying niche in life.
In this uncertain job market, Career Renewal was honored to offer a two-part program by Dr. Iris Seeley a PhD. in Human Resources and a Career Counselor for the College of Lake County.
In the presentation she presented a questionnaire and corresponding "answer sheet" that helped our participants discover their work personalities based on the six occupational themes used in the Strong Interest Inventory® [Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and Conventional (C)].
In addition, she introduced the free career testing and counseling services available to Lake County residents and vocational educational programs offered by the College of Lake County. These services are also available to participants of Career Renewal as we are sponsored in Lake County.

We concluded with an open discussion where Iris fielded many career-search questions.

You may contact Iris using the information on her business card.

Seeley Business card (jpg)

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Mary Toomey September, 2020

Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act

We were honored to have Mary Toomey from Microtrain lead our meeting and give us a comprehensive overview of the WIOA program--a Federal program that offers free grant money for training and certification to job seekers. The program is available at no cost to the recipient and does not affect any unemployment benefits. The money does not have to be used for Microtrain courses. She outlined the program which offers money to those in low or no income situations or those underemployed or collecting unemployment insurance and offered tips on navigating the ins and outs of dealing with the State offices that oversee the grants. She and her employer have extensive experience in helping people qualify for the grants and streamlining the qualification process.

Mary also introduced her company's web site to provide assistance to job seekers: theprofessional.me Among other tools, their site has a tool for matching job descriptions with individual resumes to help get past the automated applicant tracking systems.
Microtrain offers a wide range of programs for professional development including: SCRUM/AGILE, PMP, SIX SIGMA, APICS/SUPPLY CHAIN, DIGITAL MARKETING, TABLEAU, BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, AWS, AZURE, CLOUD , SHRM and more.

Mary may be contacted at Mtoomey@microtrain.net

WIOA Info Session Presentation - Career Renewal (pdf)

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Helen LaVan January, 2020

"Is your Resume Going to Impress the Resume Robots--Making it Through Applicant Tracking systems and Other Realities"

Our own advisor Helen LaVan shared with us her research into Applicant Tracking Systems and how you can best deal with them as you submit your qualifications to your target company.

Helen has an MBA and PhD and is a Professor of Management at DePaul University where she teaches both Recruitment and Selection and Career Development. She has personally helped over 4,000 individuals at all levels develop their resumes. She is a licensed counselor in the State of Illinois.

Is Your Resume Impressing The Resume Robots (pptx)

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