Hungry Hungry #HAPPO

The selfish side of me said, "Shhhhhh, don't tell others about this. Keep it all for yourself and reap all the benefits." But, we all know that I'm a better person than that.

Apparently, I'm not the only person hungry to find a PR position these days. I don't have any hard numbers to back that up, but I'm willing to bet it's true based on the creation of #HAPPO. That lovely hashtag stands for Help A PR Pro Out and was created by Arik Hanson (@arikhanson) and Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) because they knew good PR professionals who have been out of work for too long and wanted to help them out.

The goal of their #HAPPO project is to bring together companies and agencies that are in need of people with the people who need/ want those jobs. This will be helped along by some key people in certain North American markets, but I'm pretty sure anyone who knows about it can take part. In my neck of the woods, Toronto, we have two great representatives; Danny Brown and as I learned this morning from my RSS feed, Dave Fleet.

I really like this idea because as a job seeker (like myself), you start to learn that you can send out as many resumes as you want, but one of the best ways to find a job and get a foot in the door is through a personal recommendation. The best recommendations would come from people who are already respected in the field, so why not try to get one from them?

The other thing I like about this is the networking possibilities it opens up. While you may not actually get a job on #HAPPO day it should open new people up to each other that previously didn't know the other existed. It could be any mix of PR pro's with jobs, PR pro's without jobs, up-and-coming PR pro's (like myself), agencies and companies. The networking possibilities are almost endless.

While there's a bit of a buzz already going on around the idea the actual event is scheduled to take place on February 19th (this coming Friday) between 11am and 3pm EST. If you're looking for a job like myself you're encouraged to write a blog post for #HAPPO about yourself and what you're looking to do that people can be sent to see. Then, job seekers, job posters and those interested in helping should keep an eye out for anything tagged with #HAPPO for the day.

I have a great deal of respect for seeing a community come together, especially over something like helping each other. I hope that #HAPPO is a great success for everyone involved (and of course myself) and I hope that I can participate again next year but from the other side.

So while my selfish sides says to keep this for myself, the rest of me is telling you to tell everyone you know about #HAPPO that might be interested.

You can watch out for my #HAPPO blog post about myself later this week.

For more info check out the official #HAPPO website.