Photograph by Robert Scheer
Information Services Team Leader Julie Stevens (right) helps Susan Friedeberg of Sunnyvale onto the Internet.
By KATHERINE PETERSEN
Armed with a bachelor's degree after a return to school, Barbara O'Donnell set out a year ago to land a new job. The problem was, where could she find a company that would let her combine her skills in public relations and graphic design?
The Sunnyvale resident did what thousands have done since 1973 and turned to the Career Action Center in Palo Alto.
But now O'Donnell won't be making that trek up the Peninsula anymore. That's because the center that provides job retraining and promotes "career resilience" for people all over the greater Bay Area has moved closer to home--just over the city limits in Cupertino.
"I'm so glad that it's right near my house," said O'Donnell, who may just return to the center after a yearlong stint working for a market research company--a contracting job she landed with the center's help.
"I learned so much in the 50+ support group I joined when I went to the center a year ago that I may head back there. There's no retirement or medical benefits in contract work. I like what I'm doing, but my house needs a new roof and landscaping, and I know I could make more," O'Donnell said.
The center provides access to information on Bay Area companies, scads of job listings and workshops on résumé writing and interviewing.
Its new home is at 10420 Bubb Road, in the same building as the UC-Santa Cruz extension.
Five women founded the organization in 1973 to provide professional career resources for women who were re-entering the work force, a need they had identified and were experiencing, said Terry Krivan, director of center relations.
The center's mission has changed over the years and today focuses on helping individuals to develop career self-reliance and build work force resilience.
"Career self-reliance is a learning process to stay employable, moving forward with changing times. People need to constantly benchmark and improve their skills and learn what would make you valuable to an employer that interests you," Krivan said.
The center provides many services to help members build their career self-reliance, Krivan said, including a nationally renowned resource library with print and electronic career information and trained professional career librarians.
The Career Action Center also has 21 career counselors available and offers more than 200 educational workshops throughout the year.
"That's the beauty of the center. People can access information on their own, in small group settings or one-on-one with a counselor," Krivan said.
No matter where people are in their career, the Career Action Center is likely have resources to assist them. Some of the center's roughly 8,000 members have just graduated from college, while others are interested in increasing their job skills or career options or seeking employment.
"The support group was wonderful," O'Donnell recalled. "I kept wondering why all these people with Ph.D.s and master's degrees were looking for jobs, but they were in industries that were cutting back," she said.
Krivan adds: "Often, people are coming here to explore different career options or wanting to do some benchmarking of their own skills and what their field and industry requires in today's environment."
The Center has job listings in binders organized by category, and librarians can point clients in the right direction to find listings on the Internet, using 10 work stations provided by Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems.
The center's $3.2 million budget is funded by membership fees and charges for individual services, such as workshops. It also has the benefit of contributions from individuals and more than 230 Silicon Valley corporate partner companies, including 3Com Corp., National Semiconductor and Silicon Graphics.
The center also receives funding from organizations that purchase services, such as training sessions or workshops.
One service that helped O'Donnell was audio tapes provided by the center to help people brush up on interviewing skills.
"They were very helpful. There were things in there that you wouldn't actually think about," she said, citing as an example asking questions of a future employer to make sure the job is a good fit.
"You have to be proactive in an interview. You can't just sit there and let them tell you everything," she said.
One of the center's newest services is a volunteer docent program that enables new people to get a guided tour of the facility, so they aren't overwhelmed by the center's many resources, Krivan said.
Anyone can attend a free orientation daily at 10 a.m. or at 5:30 p.m. every Thursday.
"The orientation helps people get an introduction to what's here and how they might best approach what they're looking for," Krivan said.
The center also provides a service called the Career Action Network, which sets up informational interviews for clients with volunteers from many different fields. More than 600 local professionals participate in the program.
"Someone might be interested in learning about a field, job or company and would benefit from someone who has had experience there," Krivan explained.
Jack Duffield, a Sunnyvale resident, first went to the Career Action Center after being laid off from Varian Associates in Palo Alto. He received a year's membership to the center as part of a severance package.
"I was trying to become re-employed, but at the same time, I had a very ill parent so I wasn't sure I would be able to go back in the 9-to-5 work force. I was looking for other opportunities for work to do on my own time," he said.
Duffield has since received a license from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to be a patent agent, a job he can work on at home. His mother passed away at almost the same time he received his license, and now he makes weekly visits to the Career Action Center to surf the Web, give suggestions to other members and to socialize.
During his job search, Duffield had participated in one of the center's support groups for people seeking employment.
"The experience was valuable. I participated in a support group for people over 50. We got together and talked about mutual problems looking for work and shared solutions," he said.
The people at the Career Action Center are helpful and will go out of their way to hunt for information, Duffield said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, September 25, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.