DealSaver Coupon for Enrichment Classes Now Live

Community Business College has teamed up with the Modesto Bee’s new DealSaver coupon program by offering a coupon for over 50% off of tuition for both on-campus and online enrichment classes at Community Business College. The classes include computer classes, for Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint and QuickBooks.
The college has also included its upgraded online language classes in the deal. By using the e-classroom, students learn new languages from the convenience of their homes or office.

Summer is a great time to learn something new. That's why there are so many "summer reading lists" because education is a lifelong task and learning never takes a break, even during the relaxing days of summer.
As part of this “Back to School Special,” the school is also making its interactive GED preparation program is also available with this Deal Saver.
School Director Dan Guerra said the school chose to offer the College’s first DealSaver because of the “unique and innovative style of social networking with an emphasis on the local community” the DealSaver program provides. The DealSaver arrived in Modesto, California in early July of 2011 and is designed to help newspapers adapt to the opportunities in a digital world. This is the first local DealSaver to offer local educational deals.
The deal runs from July 17, 2011 through July 22. Certificates are valid from July 23, 2011, through Jan. 15, 2012 and can be purchased as gifts.
You can learn several of the programs in the Microsoft Office suite, some of the most commonly used programs in business the world over. If that job listing says you need to know Microsoft Excel, one of these on-campus classes can help you qualify. Excel is the leading spreadsheet program for businesses and has become an indespensible part of the job.
You also have a choice of learning several languages over the Web, including Spanish, French, Tagalog, Greek and many others. This deal is good for six-month classes valued at $94.00.
The Modesto Bee says, "No matter which course you choose, your life will be enriched."

The 2011 Modesto Chamber of Commerce Business Expo

Community Business College attended the 7th Annual Modesto Chamber of Commerce Business to Business Trade Show on June 23rd. It was held in the Harvest Hall at the Modesto Center Plaza and had about 75 businesses demonstrating their wares and services.
Community Business College was there for two reasons: 1) to promote our vocational program graduates to employers and 2) because we also now offer campus-based classes for businesses online business classes about how to start a new business; running a business and market a business to more customers.

This trade show booths are exclusive to Modesto Chamber of Commerce member vendors, but was open to the public. The job placement department sent out free tickets and invitations to all of the school's programs' job seekers and also to employed graduates in order to introduce them to new and active businesses in the Modesto area.

The overall goal of the show for (mostly) small business is to boost their businesses and gain new customers. The Annual Business-to-Business Trade Show opens new markets for businesses and increases awareness for its members. It is especially beneficial to remind people (especially business-to-business consumers) what's available locally.

This year's expo had tools for exhibitors including a workshop about how to prepare the booths and attract attention. It seems that some didn't heed the advice as their booths were pretty bland and a lot of people sat behind their table and chatted more amongst themselves than with expo attendees.

One of the radio stations (AM 1360 KFIV) did a live broadcast and interviews from the fair and people really seemed to enjoy it. The DoubleTree Hotel made the most of their "home-field advantage" by hanging lots of balloon arrangements from the ceilings and gave out chocolate chip cookies plus a stuffed "Mr. Cookie" toy. The cookies made a great dessert to the main course of "naked burritos" handed out by QDoba and the fruit appetizers handed out by us at Community Business College.

In addition tot he information on the school's vocational program, our booth provided information on the MyCAA, WIA and TAA training funding programs available to the school. These are great programs that can get people training and job placement assistance without saddling them with student loan debt.

The show ran from 3 PM to 7 PM Thursday. At the end of the show (around 6:30) things slowed down and some booths began packing up. Community Business College, however, was one of the stalwarts that stayed to the end.

It was a good experience and we made a lot of new contacts. The best part of the show was getting to see graduates who are employed coming to our booth and telling us how much they enjoy their new jobs.

Three New Job Leads for CBC Grads

Today our job placement department got three new job leads this morning. The job leads were from serious employers and they look like solid positions.
Hopefully this is a sign the economy is picking up again and employers are getting to the point where they need to hire.
Although there are always hirings and firings going on during any economy, it's difficult to see the bigger picture and know if there are a net number of new-hires happening. One of the ways Community Business College tries to gauge this metric is to ask employers if the job openings are newly created positions or if they are replacing somebody. The new positions tend to mean jobs are being created whereas replacing someone is more likely to mean no net gain.
If you're a CBC grad and you are interested in getting details about the positions and possibly applying for them, contact the school job placement department.

SharePoint 2010 Beta Testing Completed

We received the results of the SharePoint 2010 Beta test and it all went well. Thanks to all who participated.

Those who participated in this beta test of the certification exams were some of the first people in the nation to test in the new Microsoft Office Specialist SharePoint 2010 certification exam.
Microsoft SharePoint is a web application program by Microsoft. SharePoint is an advanced software platform multiple web applications and supports a wide variety of combinations of enterprise website requirements. Generally it is used with web content management and document management systems.

Examples of its use are multi-purpose platform allows for managing and provisioning of intranet portals, extranets, websites and search, document management, and social networking tools. SharePoint can also be used as a web application development platform.

The project at Community Business College was a very successful beta and reached its conclusion on schedule. We received an abundant amount of test results and the task of compiling and analyzing the data is already underway.

The SharePoint certification validates students' skills in the Microsoft software and is especially helpful with employers who are looking for people with a specific skill set.

The beta testing program was similar to the QuickBooks certification beta test run Community Business College did earlier this year.

If you are interested in participating in another beta certification exam, please contact the administration at Community Business College.

CBC Offering Students Free QuickBooks Exams

Free Exam Vouchers

The official QuickBooks certifications exam publisher is offering free QuickBooks certification exam vouchers to Community Business College for a very limited time (Midnight, January 31, 2011 to be exact).

It's part of the company's introduction to their new QuickBooks certification program (and a way to beta test their exam software). This Independent exam publisher chose Community Business College to provide its staff and student the opportunity to get an exam voucher and take the exam at no charge. These exams are not yet officially available on the market yet and so anybody passing the exam will receive one of the very first QuickBooks certificates issued.
Community Business College incorporates QuickBooks into its administrative training programs in order to provide its students with the background employers have said they need. The school has been designated an official testing center and also offers a QuickBooks-focused bookkeeping vocational training program.
This is the same publisher which offers the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) exams. The QuickBooks exam is not an "environment simulation" like the MOS exam, but a 50-question multiple-choice dealing with both QuickBooks topics and basic bookkeeping topics. One suggestion school staff have offered is to become familiar with QuickBooks reports, how they are used, and what the information on them means. Community Business College has a brief study guide available.

The vouchers are absolutly free and include one free re-test if you don't pass the first time around. Community Business College is also waiving its proctoring fee for tests scheduled between 9 AM - 5 PM, Monday through Friday through February 15th.

The request for a free exam voucher must be received by January 31, 2011. However, once the voucher request has been processed, the voucher is good through February 15, 2011. Supplies of vouchers are limited and the offer may end at any time before January 31. It's on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you can't make it to Community Business College to take an exam, you can schedule the exam with another testing center which can be found at: http://www.certiport.com/portal/pages/locatorview.aspx
Make sure to ask if the other testing center is ready for QuickBooks exams and if they charge a proctoring fee.

How to Get a Free Testing Voucher: Send an e-mail by clicking here or call Dan at Community Business College at (209) 529-3648.

In addition to the QuickBooks vouchers, there are also AutoDesk exam vouchers available under the same program.

First Week of the New Year Results

As we wrapped up the first full week of the new year, 2011, things seem very much like 2010 but we saw some positive signs this week:

• Job interviews increasing. Although unemployment figures for December were released by EDD on Friday and the numbers for for last month seem to be more of the same high unemployment, low-growth, we at Community Business College have seen more activity in job interviews of our graduates. More graduates reported this week that they are getting more job interviews.

• Interest in training is up. We had a lot of interest from people looking to make 2011 a year where they put learning and education higher on the priority list. From Rosetta Stone language learning to the full vocational programs in Medical Office Specialist and HVAC , the inquiry calls increased this week over the last weeks in December.

• More Opportunities for learning. This week there were some announcements for increased opportunities for both staff and students to learn new things. This includes the Certiport certification testing for QuickBooks and a new Get Motivated seminar coming in early Spring.

So it was a good and busy week. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come in 2011. Happy New Year!

November Graduation

These are the days that remind us of all the things for which we can be thankful. At Community Business College we are thankful to be able to graduate another group of wonderful students today.

The ceremony was a lot of fun. Things were a little cozier than other graduations, possible because of the weather and some who had hoped to make it couldn't. One graduate couldn't make it because of job opportunity and we certainly understand that.

We had a delicious lunch with a lot of wonderful dishes. Whether it's because the Thanksgiving holiday is so near or because people just got into the spirit of the graduation, there were some excellent foods with great takes on traditional recipes.

One observation on this graduation is that the dignitaries who were invited have all been promoted since the last time we saw them. That's good for them and exciting to see.

We at the school all hope the job prospects for our fresh grads are improving. The labor market results for California and Stanislaus, Merced and San Joaquin counties came out today with some good news and bad news:

The bad news:

Employment is still high (over 12%). The overall employment picture for the last month hasn't improved a lot since the months before .

The good news:

Unemployment hasn't gotten worse. There seems to be some stability now and that what layoffs are still happening are being balanced by some hiring.

It does seem that the standards have really changed when the phrase "unemployment hasn't gotten any worse" is seen as "good news," but these are not ordinary times. They are surely times with extraordinary challenges.

With extraordinary challenges comes extraordinary people and we feel our graduates from our programs are extraordinary people who will soon be working for good companies.

Good luck to the 2010 class that graduated today!