LI Breakfast Club points job-seekers to the voice-over sector

    The Long Island Breakfast Club is taking its message to the airwaves. It's West Hempstead-based founders were invited by Larry Carlson of WHPC to chat on his "Music is Therapy" program earlier this month.
    Discussing its mission on the radio was a great way to reach a new audience, according to President and co-founder Valentina Janek, who started the LIBC to support middle-aged, unemployed Long Islanders. The club has been around for four years, its membership growing significantly in that time, but Janek had wanted to expand its network to include employers seeking skilled workers who just happen to be older.
    "When interviewing for a job, it has become quite difficult for [those 40 and older] to get back in the job market," Janek recently told the Herald, adding that it's common for employers to view the Generation X crowd — Gen Xers — as old-fashioned or outdated. The LIBC hoped to dispel that myth by going on the radio show and talking about it's purpose and the resources it offers.
    The club attracts people who are looking not only to network, but also to re-establish or reinvent themselves, to find new careers and professions, to stay current. The more potential employers recognize the value of a group like the LIBC, Janek said, the greater the benefit to all. The radio show, LIBC members hope, will help accomplish that.
    It has already helped somewhat — in a different way. The best part of doing the June 1 and 4 shows on the Nassau Community College radio program, Janek said, was the LIBC's discovery of the voice-over marketplace. This sector, club Vice President and co-founder Stephanie Carlino said, is "age-proof."
    Consider it for a minute: do most people give any thought to who's doing the voice-overs for radio or television commercials? Do they care about the age of voice-over actors on their favorite animated television shows? Take, for example, The Simpsons, where the voices of 8-year-old Lisa and 10-year-old Bart are actually those of Yeardley Smith, who is 46, and Nancy Cartwright, who is 53.