Participant Benefits

HOW PAPEN CAN HELP YOU

PAPEN can provide you:

• Opportunities to develop and use your networking skills
• No-cost presentations by experts in various aspects of job search techniques
• Professionally run meetings to interact with professionals like yourself
• Opportunities to contribute to a worthwhile organization

If you were an accountant looking for a better job, would access to currently employed CFOs be of interest to you? As an unemployed engineer, would you value interacting with engineering managers? Looking for an administrative assistant position, do you think that contact with dozens of executives might increase your opportunities for employment?

As a Participant of PAPEN, you have access to senior managers and executives who know firsthand what it's like to be looking for a job and how good it feels when someone reaches out to help.

PAPEN provides you access to such professionals who were once in your career situation. Those professionals, now PAPEN alumni, are willing to help you reach your employment goals. Each PAPEN Chapter has a complete Alumni Directory and other reference materials to aid your job search. At your next PAPEN meeting, ask to see these tremendous information resources.

At each meeting, you have access to the job leads that employers forward to PAPEN both current leads and those from the last few months. Chapter meetings enable you to network as well as obtain copies of the latest PAPEN newsletter and handouts with valuable job search information that guest speakers often provide. (Ask for available back copies of these handouts).

HOW YOU CAN HELP PAPEN

You get value from any organization only to the extent that you are willing to commit time and effort to it. Your most productive contribution to PAPEN is to attend the meetings regularly, preferably at least once a week. Other Participants will gain by your presence, and you will gain by theirs. The more you participate, the greater will be everyone’s gain.

Don’t give up if progress seems to be slow the more meetings you attend, the more your network will grow, and the more polished your skills will become. After half a dozen meetings, you’ll be a skillful networker with a meaningful network in place.

While networking, you may uncover opportunities that are not quite right for you. Don't ignore them. Describe them on a Job Posting form and email it to PAPEN. Chances are that someone else in the organization just might be a good fit for that position. Also, when interviewing with a prospective employer, take a moment to mention that you belong to PAPEN, explain who we are and what we do (remember our mission statement?) Ask the interviewer to think of PAPEN the next time an opening occurs in the company, and leave a Job Posting form.

Even as a new Participant, you might want to run for office. Serving in a leadership position not only helps sharpen your communications and planning skills, it offers an opportunity to list those responsibilities on your résumé. We welcome your involvement as a Chapter leader or in any other contributing role the more you give, the more you get.

The PAPEN program works. Hundreds of professionals have participated in PAPEN and significantly advanced their careers. YOU WILL TOO!