{"id":136978,"date":"2010-01-04T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/goforward.harpercollege.edu\/page.cfm?p=5654&newsid=913"},"modified":"2010-01-04T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-04T20:00:00","slug":"job-search-experts-try-to-cheer-up-clients-for-the-new-year-crains-chicago-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/136978","title":{"rendered":"Job-Search Experts Try to Cheer Up Clients for the New Year, Crain’s Chicago Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Crystal Yednak
<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Richard Oberbruner is accustomed to tough crowds. A career coach who also studied at Second City, he once used improv techniques in classes with inmates at the DuPage County Jail. <\/span><\/p>\n

So a roomful of people searching for work as the national unemployment rate hovers around 10%? No problem. <\/p>\n

“They’re trying to keep their best face, trying to stay confident, but they really are depressed and anxious. Improv is a safe setting to vent their frustrations and get a laugh,” says Mr. Oberbruner, who recently led a humorous presentation titled “Lighten Up — It’s Only Unemployment” for Harper College’s job search support group, Career Stimulus. <\/p>\n

“We wanted to take a moment to let the load up just a little bit,” says Nancy Wajler, who coordinates adult learning programs at Harper College in Palatine. <\/p>\n

Other networking groups have offered similar light fare to gear clients up for a new year of job searching. At the Career Transitions Center of Chicago, members of a networking group did a book exchange as a distraction from the enthusiasm-pummeling job market. <\/p>\n

Making people smile can even help with the job search, says Anita Jenke, director of the center. “People don’t want to be around mopey people,” she says. “Employers want to hire people who are passionate about what they do.” <\/p>\n

Brad Mahan, 47, who has been looking for work as a customer-service representative, attended the Career Stimulus program at Harper. <\/p>\n

The job search “has been difficult because of the economy,” says Mr. Mahan, of north suburban Island Lake. But the humor-filled event “got everybody motivated to keep going out there and applying.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Crystal Yednak Richard Oberbruner is accustomed to tough crowds. A career coach who also studied at Second City, he once used improv techniques in classes with inmates at the DuPage County Jail. So a roomful of people searching for work as the national unemployment rate hovers around 10%? No problem. “They’re trying to keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}