Meet the staff.

The financial woes and the downsizing that have battered the economy in the past few years have hit every market sector and many executive suites--and FEI members have hardly been immune. As a result, the Career Services department has taken on new challenges and increased in importance as the number of members in transition has mushroomed.

Director Diane Albergo, who joined FEI as a Career Services associate in 1995, has expanded the Career Services offerings accordingly. Consider a few current initiatives:

* FEI has upgraded its Resume Bank and Jobs Center, both located on the Career Services section of the main Web site. Members can do everything from searching for jobs to posting their resumes for the search community to see.

* A pair of career management seminars will be held in the coming months in Atlanta and Cleveland--carrying three CPE credits each--stressing areas such as audit committee posts, executive coaching, compensation trends and networking and interviewing.

* In January 2004, Albergo says, FEI will begin hosting a series of monthly teleconferences on career management, and plans to put on a career services breakfast at the annual Summit in April in San Diego.

* Then there's an upcoming "job alert" program, in which Career Services members who sign up will be recipients of an email blast about newly posted jobs. She thinks that may evolve into a weekly service, or even more frequent if the number of jobs justifies it.

Many FEI members, Albergo notes, are inexperienced with critical career issues like crafting an effective resume and skillful networking that builds on relationships. "Career management is really something to do while you're working," she says. "That's very, very important." She produces a periodic e-newsletter, CareerTrax, which offers members advice and news about new developments or services.

Much of Albergo's experience at FEI has been spent working with recruiters, and with advising members on how to work with them and with hiring companies. Frequently, this consultation has been one-on-one--advising members on issues as basic as how to dress and to act in an interview to more individualized concerns.

Career Services Associate Barbara Tokar--a five-year veteran of FEI who is scheduled to retire in December--handles the administrative load for the department. Much of that involves fielding phone calls from members registered with Career Services, screening recruiters (only retained search firms, member companies and qualified employees are allowed to access FEI's database), posting jobs on the Web site and doing some basic counseling and answering questions. "She's my right arm," Albergo says.

A couple of new programs are also on Albergo's mind. The Directors Registry, which connects recruiters to members interested in serving on corporate boards, went online in October after several months of development. Now, interested members can enroll online and upload their resumes, and have retained recruiters and board directors screen that data.

"That's really a big deal," Albergo says, noting that the registry has more than 800 names. "We've found what works and what doesn't." As currently set up, the registry "is more of a referral service than anything," allowing search firms an easy way to tap into a qualified pool of potential directors.

A big goal for the coming year, she adds, is to increase the connection between Career Services and FEI's chapters, which she hopes "leads to more jobs and job awareness for members." A Web tool launched this past summer, for instance, allows chapter officers to post jobs on the Job Bank. Increasing chapter awareness and use of these tools should create more postings and help members in their job searches.

"We're trying to be a clearinghouse for jobs," Albergo says. "It's FEI's job to provide the tools and the resources. We're not a placement agency. We're actually more on the outplacement side." But Career Services is ready, she says, to walk members through the Web tools if need be, and is eager to help expand the use of national tools for local programs.