Neil P. McNulty - The Ex-Offenders 30/30 Job Solution: Quickly Find a Lifeboat Job Close to Home

Most ex-offenders face important re-entry time and place issues quickly find a promising lifeboat job both close to home and near their parole/probation officer. That requires initiative in building a resume... and burying a rap sheet.

H OW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO LAND A JOB, and where will you find that job? Those two time and place questions are central to the many challenges facing ex-offenders as they go about the daunting and stressful business of trying to make it in the free world. Time and place are of the essence as they must quickly take their own initiative in making many life-altering decisions with outcomes that are anything but certain. After spending so much boring, mind-numbing time in a cage, where they experienced bouts of fear, distrust, and depression, life now comes at them in dizzying speeds, requiring many new decisions and responsibilities. As they soon discover, this new, fascinating, and often scary life on the outside is anything but boring!

First and foremost, the urgency of now is to find a job and keep it in order to support themselves and stay out of trouble. As we stress throughout this unconventional book, that job often needs to be close to home as well as near their parole or probation officer. For many ex-offenders looking for their first job out, any job will do as long as it provides them with sufficient income to survive on the outside and point them in the promising direction of re-entry success. Put another way, most ex-offenders need to quickly find a lifeboat job that will help float their transition to another level.

While many employment experts primarily focus on finding ideal jobs ones their clients do well and enjoy doing youre different, and thus you require another approach. Re-entry for ex-offenders initially is all about survival in the free world without a strong and reliable net. Therefore, we are more concerned that you quickly find a job that helps you support yourself right away as you embark on a new life in the free world. That job should enable you to become stable, self-sufficient, and productive. In short, this book is all about getting that all-important steppingstone job. Hopefully that job will also lead to a satisfying career. But you need to focus on first things first get a lifeboat job to navigate some choppy waters ahead and avoid drowning in a sea of must dos. Its all about taking initiative (something that may have been killed while doing time in a cage), acquiring important knowledge, and using wise reality-based strategies for reshaping your future.

Any job can lead to something great if you have the right attitude and work hard.

In todays challenging economy, we increasingly focus on what we call a lifeboat job. Such a job may well become your key to long-term re-entry success. Handled properly, it should give your life both purpose and direction. Better still, it will help you avoid that vicious cycle of recidivism that too often plagues the lives of many ex-offenders and reflects a failed criminal justice system.

Lets begin by clarifying what we mean by a lifeboat job. Its one you need to find NOW not six months down the road in order to keep yourself financially afloat. Its essentially a survival, stop-gap, or bridge job that may or may not lead to a rewarding career. Its not one you should agonize over for long. Just take it, and get on with your life. After all, better days lie ahead for those who welcome opportunities and respond accordingly. You can always change jobs after you get settled in, establish meaningful routines, and build your resume in the process of burying your rap sheet!

While many lifeboat jobs are dead-end jobs, others lead to meaningful careers. Indeed, this book should assist you in finding good lifeboat jobs those with a promising future rather than bad lifeboat jobs those that go nowhere, may depress your future, or lead to trouble.

As you journey through life, you soon discover that there are both seasons and purposes in life that are subject to changes that may or may not be within your control. Lets face it. Sometimes personal circumstances, such as your incarceration, dictate that you must find a job that may not particularly appeal to you, but its a job that will support you as well as contribute to your long-term freedom. Such jobs give you a se cure financial footing so that you can take care of your basic housing, clothing, food, transportation, and other essential daily living needs. While such jobs may turn out to be very satisfying and eventually lead to career advancement, they at least give you a paycheck in exchange for your labor. Understandably, you need to quickly develop a steady income stream in order to survive, and hopefully do well, on the outside. In the process, you should grow into the job by acquiring new skills, becoming accomplished, and getting promoted. Best of all, youll turn that lifeboat into a positive long-term career!

Ex-offenders know all too well the importance of lifeboat jobs and survival on the outside. Being released from prison or jail without money, a job, or family support, and facing immediate housing, clothing, food, medical, and transportation needs as well as probation and parole reporting requirements they need to quickly land a job near where they live.

Not all lifeboat jobs are dead-end jobs. Indeed, many are transformative they put your life on an unexpected journey to somewhere you never thought possible but extremely rewarding nonetheless. In fact, no matter what youve done, dead-end job or otherwise, any job even digging ditches or delivering pizzas can lead to something great if you have the right attitude, work hard, and persist. Just think about it for a moment. All companies, no matter what service they provide or product they produce, have people who own them, run them, make money, and have a real career. Many ex-offenders who now run major companies once started out at the very bottom. Take, for example, David Koch (author of Slaying the Dragon) who established a Fortune 500 company and sold it for millions after doing serious prison time. Then theres actor Robert Downey, Jr., who seemingly conquered his drug demons and became todays highest paid actor. The list goes on and on with Martha Stewart, Tim Allen, 50 Cent, Wesley Snipes, Don King, Lil Wayne, James Brown, and Mike Tyson. Not all conquered their demons, but they did time and survived against many odds. Along the less visible celebrity route, youll find restaurant chain owners who started their careers by delivering pizzas they were ex-offenders. Youll find owners of major construction companies who began with a shovel in their hands digging ditches under a hot sun and they were ex-offenders. The main difference is these people worked harder than others and had the right attitude for success. And thats what you need to do. This book will show you how to find good lifeboat jobs ones that lead to a career if you work hard and have the right attitude. For many ex-offenders, attitude is something they need to work on.

Unfortunately, few people know how to find good lifeboat jobs. Many waste a great deal of time looking for jobs in all the wrong places and then eventually settle for hard-labor, low-paying, and unstable day laborer jobs. Such jobs may in fact be impediments to long-term survival on the outside. Your goal should be to land a good job with a promising future.

Most ex-offenders expect to face difficulties in landing a job given their criminal backgrounds. After all, employers are not social experiments. Why would they want to take a chance and hire a known ex-offender? Regardless of what you may think of yourself real or delusional isnt it risky business to hire someone with your background?