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| Claire Benjamin, 17, left, stands next to her mother Laurie Vial, right, underneath a billboard advertisement for Vial’s online resume. (THE PANTAGRAPH/B MOSHER) |
Bloomington, IL — Laurie Vial has sent out resumes and networked for 11 months, but hasn’t found a job. Frustrated, she hopes a billboard along Veterans Parkway will change all that.
The billboard, across from Panera Bread near the Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center at Veterans and Brickyard Drive, is visible to motorists driving south on Veterans. It advertises her as a qualified candidate seeking a full-time position and lists her job search Web site.
“I want to be back in the job force moving my career forward,” she said Thursday at the hotel.
The rural Ellsworth resident, 49, who has worked in marketing and public relations among other positions, said she thought of the billboard idea while brainstorming about how to better market herself.
The billboard will cost $1,400 for four weeks – money she took from savings.
It will be money well spent, she said, if it leads to a job, adding she already has the promise of three interviews since the billboard message appeared earlier this week.
That’s the same number of job interviews she’s had the entire time she’s been unemployed, she said.
The single mother of two has a degree in agricultural communications from the University of Illinois and hopes to continue working in Central Illinois.
Right now, she’s employed part time, doing transcription work for a doctoral student at the U of I. She’s also collecting unemployment.
Vial, who until September worked as a spokesperson for a Bloomington utility company, said she sends out an average of eight resumes a week and regularly checks a variety of employment Web sites.
While Jeri Beggs, an associate professor of marketing at Illinois State University, said the billboard is creative, the cost is a negative.
“I don’t think we’ll see more of this. Most wouldn’t spend the money,” Beggs said.
By Bob Holliday
August 20, 2009
source: pantagraph.com