Partners in Business

3520 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322-3520

Phone: 435.797.2279
Fax: 435.797.3440
Email: partners@usu.edu

Student Host Articles

Networking
Nov. 16, 2008
Herald Journal

Connections result in job offer for USU senior

By Cameron Salony features writer


According to Jake Neeley, a senior at Utah State University, the new net working cliché “is not who you know, but who knows you.” 

Neeley said he launched his professional network to a new level when he hosted Sean Yazbeck, the season five winner of NBC’s reality TV show “The Apprentice,” at a Partners in Business seminar at USU last month. 

According to its Web site, Partners in Business is a nationally recognized program that has provided job training for 39 years. The program initiated real estate, insurance and accounting seminars in 1976. In the 1980s, the program introduced world trade, human resource management, and management information systems seminars. According to the Web site “these seminars provide innovative business practices, strategies and net works to succeed.”
“The Apprentice” is a show that consists of a 15-week job interview for each contestant to earn a chance to run one of billionaire Donald Trump’s companies. A camera crew follows the candidates throughout the 15 weeks. Yazbeck, who was born in London, is the first non-American to be hired during the show’s history. 

After winning “The Aprentice,” Yazbeck worked as the head of sales for Trump Soho Hotel Condominium, the national spokesperson for the Trump Institute and as a judge on the “The Apprentice.” He was also asked to work alongside Bruce Willis and Nick Nolte in the film “Over the Hedge” in 2006.
He currently is the owner of WAVSYS, an international company that specializes in technical staffing for companies like Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. According to Yazbeck, the company forms its operations after Trump’s business model.  Neeley said that since he was one of the first students to volunteer as a host for the seminar he got to chose who he wanted to host. He jumped at the chance to net work with Yazbeck. 

Hosting duties include: picking up and dropping off the professional at the airport, driving him/her to The University Inn in Logan, picking him/her up the next morning and introducing him/her at several classes, meetings, seminars and at a dinner. Neeley said he enjoyed picking up Yazbeck at the airport and all of his hosting duties. 

“The ride from (the airport) was kind of interesting,” Neeley said, “(There was) a lot of personal conversation. He asked a lot of questions about me and what I’m doing.” 

Neeley said he was grateful for internet technology which helped him research Yazbeck’s biography and that this greatly assisted his participation in these conversations. 

“I learned everything, even down to the detail that he has a Vespa scooter,” Neeley said. 

Since Neeley and Yazbeck already had the “get-toknow” you conversation driving from Salt Lake to Logan he didn’t know exactly what to talk to Yazbeck about the next day. So he “just asked him questions about business decisions and techniques.” 

After completing all of his speaking duties, according to Neeley, Yazbeck offered him a recruiter job at Wavsys. Yazbeck said that Neeley would be successful in his company and that Neeley was someone they could train. 

“I’ve never heard that from someone so straightforward,” Neeley said. “On the way back to Salt Lake we talked about what I’d be doing at WAVSYS. I was just at the right place at the right time.” 

Neeley, who doesn’t graduate until May, said that he is still negotiating the logistics of the job with Yazbeck via e-mail. Neeley said it is possible that he could work in one of several locations including Miami and New York City. 

While Neeley utilizes and endorses professional online networking sources like LinkedIn, he said the seminar was beneficial to him because he personally met several successful entrepreneurs and recruiters. 

“The best way to network is face to face,” Neeley said, “They know my name and I know theirs, and that’s the biggest thing.”