About Conejo Jewish Job Support

Conejo Jewish Job Support was started by Southern California business coach Deborah Gallant in early 2009. 

She saw a need in the community (starting at home---her husband had been laid off when Countrywide Financial was sold to Bank of America) and proposed starting a weekly support group to the leadership at her temple, Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks, California.  They were behind it from the start, offering to host it, provide coffee and bagels and use their outreach into the community and with other temples to spread the word.


There is no charge to attend the meetings and participants to not have to be Jewish.  There is a voluntary coffee fund and successful job hunters have set the precedent of making a modest contribution back to the Temple when they get their first paycheck.
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Want to start your own Job Support Group?

Here are Deborah's top tips:

1. Find a non-profit like a church or synagogue to sponsor and host you so you don't have to scramble to find a location and you'll also start with a natural community of people to start spreading the word.
2. The group needs a leader with some expertise in the career coaching sector and also skill at group facilitation or the whole thing can turn into a whining session.  This person will need to commit a fair amount of time (at least up front) and usually these groups don't have an end date, so you need to be in for the long haul.
3. Automate as much as possible.  CJJS runs through this do-it-yourself website and through Constant Contact newsletters.  (If you want the site to really work for you, you don't want it to be just a hidden part of the temple's bigger site, it will just get lost and you won't be able to keep it up to date.)  We list resources and post jobs as they are given to us.
4. An initial flyer was created in PDF and distributed to the various congregations in the area, they printed it out themselves and included it in their newsletters, etc.  Give the flyers to the participants and let them spread the word.
5. Keep logistics simple, we do coffee and bagels.  A resume book lets people put their resumes in it.  An Excel spreadsheet tracks contact info.  We bought reusable name badges and bring them every week.
6. Do outreach to the local press, they are always looking for stories about the unemployment crisis.  We got Page 1 coverage in VC Star.
7. Also do outreach to other natural places that unemployed people are gathering, like the unemployment center, other support groups and networking groups.
8. Make sure that there is real value at every meeting:  use contacts and outreach to create a varied program that supports the Whole Person, not just the Job Hunt.  We've got coaches, family therapists, resume writers, business brokers, the whole gamut.
9. Set some Rules of The Road, like whether or not you want to let those Multi Level Marketing people participate (they see your group as fresh prospects).  We banned them and all selling to the group.