The Ex-Offender's New Job Finding and Survival Guide

The latest edition of this ground-breaking guide offers seasoned advice to ex-offenders facing numerous barriers to employment. Indeed, finding a good job is the number one challenge facing hundreds of ex-offenders re-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 behind the depressing fire walls of prisons, jails, and detention centers. What they most need are good jobs that pay living wages. So what should ex-offenders do in order to land a good job? Where should they go? What strategies work best for them? The book provides important answers to many re-entry questions. Beginning with 20 myths/realities and 22 principles for success, one of America's leading employment and re-entry experts reveals 10 steps to job and career success, from changing attitudes, seeking assistance, assessing skills, and setting goals to writing resumes, networking, and interviewing for jobs. Special chapters focus on job survival, advancement, and conquering the digital workplace. Rich in insights and filled with practical examples, exercises, self-tests, and resources, here's the book that can make a big difference in the lives of ex-offenders. It shows them how to contact employers who will want to hire them because of their unique talents, positive attitudes, and strong employer-centered motivations. Best of all, they learn how to find a job they both do well and enjoy doing as they go on to living a new and productive life centered around work, family, and community. Foreword by Joyce Lain Kennedy.