Publisher's Synopsis
Originally published as The Ex-Offenders Job Hunting Guide (2005), this ground-breaking book offers sound re-entry employment advice for those with red flags in their backgrounds and those who may appear unemployable. Indeed, finding a good job is the number one challenge facing thousands of ex-offenders entering the free world each day. Successful re-entry is especially difficult for those who have lost everything, including hope and optimism. Without a decent job and support network to help meet immediate food, housing, transportation, and health care needs, and often saddled with onerous financial obligations (fines, restitution, child support payments, accumulated debts), many ex-offenders fall back on old dysfunctional habits, relationships, and temptations that lead them back to prisons, jails, and detention centers. While many employers may not want to hire someone with a criminal record, others are willing to give ex-offenders a second chance and help them get back on their feet and move ahead with their lives. In fact, we live in a society that both admires and supports people who can pick themselves up, transform their lives, and go on to achieve their dreams. - What should ex-offenders do in order to land a good job? - Where should they go to find a job they do well and enjoy doing? What strategies work best for them? This book provides important answers to many re-entry questions facing ex-offenders. Beginning with an examination of 20 myths/realities and 22 principles for success, Ronald Krannich, one of America's leading employment and re-entry experts, reveals 10 steps to job and career success: - Examine and change your attitudes - Seek assistance and become proactive - Select appropriate job search approaches - Assess your skills and identify your motivational pattern - State a powerful objective - Conduct research on jobs and communities - Write effective resumes and letters - Network for information, advice, and referrals - Develop winning job interview skills - Negotiate salary and benefits like a pro. The book includes two special chapters. The first one examines what to do once you've landed the job how to survive and prosper on the job as well as how to advance your career. The second one focuses on how to best use the Internet to find a job especially useful for those lacking online job search skills, because they have spent so much time behind a prison firewall! Rich in insights and filled with practical examples, exercises, self-tests, and resources, here's the book that can make a big difference for ex-offenders and those who assist them (counselors and trainers). Follow each step and you'll begin meeting employers who will want to hire you because of your unique talents and your new attitudes and motivations rather than your spotted past. You'll find a job that you both do well and enjoy doing. Best of all, your Second Act will be living a new and productive life centered around your work, family, and community. Foreword by Joyce Lain Kennedy. Includes an online instructors guide.
