---
layout: post
title: 'Announcing 2021 SeaGL Career Expo'
status: publish
type: post
published: true
categories: news
tags: '2021'
---

SeaGL is excited for the return of our Virtual Career Expo on Friday, November 5th.

For the career expo, we will provide resume reviews, career guidance, practice interviews, and job seeking assistance via private consultation.
Counselors will be available for 30 minute jitsi sessions (*video optional*) starting at 10:00 Pacific time Friday morning.
Counseling sessions will wrap up by 17:00 Friday afternoon.

SeaGL exists to support the FLOSS community.
We started the career expo to help people find and nurture careers working in and with FLOSS.
Like other aspects of SeaGL, the career expo is dedicated to providing a harassment-free, inclusive experience that follows our [Code of Conduct](/code_of_conduct).

## Career Expo Enrollment

Please [sign up](https://gnu-cloud.yourownnet.cloud/apps/forms/asXtdA7MbCACkrDp) using our Nextcloud form if you would like to book a session.
There is no charge for participating in the career expo.

## Resume Review

It is beneficial if our counselors can review resumes ahead of the expo.
We ask resumes be made available as soon as practical to allow our counselors to determine their own review schedule.

As counselors might wish to make notes, please provide resumes in a writeable free and open format such as LibreOffice ODT or plain text.
We can also make notes on an annotatable format such as PDF.

## Day of Participation

We will open a Matrix channel (with an IRC option) for participants the day of the career expo.
Counselors will contact participants via Matrix, IRC or email to schedule sessions.

The counseling sessions will be conducted via jitsi rooms.
Jitsi provides in browser conferencing with a video option.

No account is required to sign up for counseling sessions or to use jitsi.

## Background

Hans started the [Free Software Stammtisch career nights](https://www.lufthans.com/Free_Software_Stammtisch#JobsNights) as a means of helping his students enter the field or further their careers.
Thanks to generous volunteering from other counselors, the career nights have helped many people over the years.

The job nights led to working with the job board and career guidance events at the [Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE)](https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/).
We found career guidance events such as "Ask a recruiter", "What a hiring manager looks for" and "Resume reviews" to garner significant interest.
Our first resume review event was scheduled for one hour, filled the room and ran for 3 hours.

At SeaGL we added a job board, but found it wasn't sufficient for what we wanted to offer.

In 2020 [RaiseMe](https://shellcon.io/raiseme/) worked with SCaLE to add [Open Source Career Day](https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/18x/open-source-career-day)

Then, the pandemic hit and everything went virtual.
As it turns out, the pandemic actually provided opportunity.
Going virtual gives us access to assistance from counselors who don't usually make it to Seattle.

We hope that our 2021 virtual career expo will provide value to our community.

## Thank Yous

SeaGL wants to thank the career counselors who are volunteering their time for the career expo.
We also want to thank our volunteers and [sponsors](/sponsors/2020) who make SeaGL possible.

Thanks especially to Lori B and her [RaiseMe](https://shellcon.io/raiseme/) program at events like ShellCon and LayerOnefor providing a virtual event model for us to learn from.
Thanks also to her for volunteering to help with counseling for our Career Expos!

## Contact the SeaGL Career Expo

If you have questions or would like to help with career guidance, please contact us at CareerExpo (at) SeaGL.org.
