Free job search support in Portland, third WEDNESDAY of every month.
Knowing where to look for work was never really the hard part. Getting stuck halfway through an application with nobody to ask is the hard part.
Co-WERQ: Find a Job Together is a monthly online session where people bring what they're stuck on, work it out with the room, and then actually finish it.
How the 90 minutes goes
Tool of the month, 15 minutes. One job board, database, or resource, demoed live. Not a lecture. Here's the thing, here's how it works, here's the part that isn't obvious.
What you're working on, and what's in your way, 10 minutes. Everyone names both. You can type yours in chat instead of speaking.
Ask the Room, 10 minutes. Open problem-solving on whatever just got named. Somebody's hit that portal. Somebody knows what that form wants. Somebody got past the same rejection.
Work block, 35 minutes. Timer up, everyone doing their own thing in the same room. Optional buddy room if you want someone to read your cover letter or run a practice interview.
Wins and what helped, 10 minutes. Say what you got done. Credit whoever helped.
The kinds of things people bring
How to explain a gap in work history. Applications that time out and lose everything. What to put for references when your last job went badly. Old employers with your old name on file. Forty applications and no responses. Whether a listing is a scam.
All of those have answers, and most of them have answers somebody in the room already found.
Who it's for
Anyone in the Portland metro with job search work to do. WERQ TOGETHER is a trans-led nonprofit and these rooms are built with trans and gender-expansive people in mind, but nobody is turned away.
You don't have to be unemployed. Plenty of people come while working and quietly looking for something else. The guest list is hidden.
Details
Third Tuesday monthly, 5:00 to 6:30pm Pacific. Online. Free. Cameras optional, always. Live captions on.
Only the fifteen-minute tool demo is recorded, so people who miss it can catch up. Nothing after that is recorded.
Questions or access needs: peers@werqt.org
Want to help run these?
These rooms run on volunteers, and there's a role at every level, including ones with no live time at all. Sign up at volunteer.werqt.org
About WERQ TOGETHER
A trans-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, building community infrastructure across resource navigation, housing, and economic power.