Friday, August 13, 2010

Careers after the armed forces by Jon Mitchell

Careers After the Armed Forces: How to Decide on the Right Career and Make a Successful TransitionTransitioning from the military to the civilian workforce is a question that some librarians will have to assist their clients with. Careers After the Armed Forces is written specifically for Forces personnel that are considering leaving the Forces or who are in the process of leaving and who need to find work to support themselves and their families. In brisk, short chapters, the book covers making the decision to leave the Forces, selecting a career, writing a resume, interviewing and salary negotiation.

This book does cover some of the unique problems faced by military personnel, such as why leave the Forces during a recession and translating military experience into the civilian workforce, but most of the topics covered will need to be supplemented with a book or additional resources about a specific part of the work search. For example, the section on resumes should probably be read in conjunction with Best Canadian Resumes and the assistance of a counselor or resume review at the very least.

Both the publisher and the author are from the UK, so some of the terminology—“CV”, as opposed to “resume”, and “pay rise” instead of “raise”— and resources do favour Forces leavers from the UK, but the author does make an effort to write for soldiers in developed, English-speaking nations in general. Canadian Forces members will need to look for resources specific to the Canadian civilian labour force, and the one Canadian website reference in the book generated a 404 Page Not Found error.

On the whole, this book would not be enough for any current military member planning a transition from the military, but supplemented with additional resources specific to the person’s current situation, it would be a good book to get the person thinking about career planning and the steps involved in the process.

Careers After the Armed Forces: How to Decide on the Right Career and Make a Successful Transition

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Voice of Careers Webinar

My bad news last week: Laurie Ruettiman will no longer be writing Punk Rock HR. And if you have no read Punk Rock HR, you will not know that that is really bad news. I could have cried--but I wouldn't since it only felt like someone had kicked a puppy but it wasn't my puppy.

She is, however, moving on to other stuff, which includes the Voice of HR and their upcoming webinar, Getting the Job You Want: Accelerate Your Career Search with a Sales and Marketing Strategy on August 18, 2010. Since this is the first one, anything could really happen--I'm hoping successful things, so we keep hearing more from Laurie.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

JobPrize and other Job Referral Networks

Adding a financial incentive to job seeking and rewarding a connection is not new--there are plenty of companies that offer bonuses to employees that find a candidate that they can match to a currently open job, but JobPrize allows a job seeker to post a profile and offer a reward for finding the matching job.

The job seeker registers on JobPrize and offers a reward for the person who can find the job that they want. According to the About Us section of the JobPrize website, the job yenta should just be employed in the industry. Ideally, what I think they hope will happen is that an accountant at a hospital will make connections with nurses on the site because both work in the healthcare industry. They recommend the person to the position and if the match is made, the matchmaker can claim the prize.

I'm already detecting some problems with this: you don't know these people. This means they aren't in your network and you really shouldn't trust them.
  • What if you end up recommending someone who lied about their education or ends up needing some serious anger management training? 
  • Do you have to disclose your relationship to this person if HR calls you to find out why you recommended them? 
  • What if the job seekers discloses how she found out about this position and it turns out you will be double-dipping: getting prize money from the job seeker and claiming the recommendation bonus from your employer? 
  • How do you know that the job seeker, once they secure an interview, is going to be good for the bounty? The site states that the job seeker needs to put the prize into an escrow account, but how do you know if she really got the job--and owes you some money?
  • What happens if the site is taken over by people who have better research skills (*cough* librarians) who spend their day finding job ads to match the people on the site, hoping to score prize money?
I don't mean to be a party-pooper but part of a network means you should trust and be trusted--which requires building a relationship, even if it is online. I won't undermine online networking, especially if you have done work for the person at a distance, but a referee should have some idea of your skills or personality and not put you forward because you offered them cash.

And guess what I found when I was searching on the topic? A patent filed for a job referral network system.

Other peer-to-peer job finding services:
Spotted on Springwise.