Anita Bruzzese, who writes for a plethora of newspapers, has a great post titled Sometimes the Real Battle Begins When Vets Return Home and Try to Find a Job. I love how she ends the post (which was published in USA Today):

“You learn so many valuable things in the military – these people know how to solve problems, how to work together and have a lot of personal integrity,” he says. “They make excellent employees, and they deserve a place at the table.”

Isn’t that true? Read the entire post, I think it will resonate with you!

I don’t know of any who knows more about securing financial aid for education than Chris Penn.  Not only is he an expert in this space, he is one of the best networked social media experts around.

Chris is a master of information dissemination, and put together a special podcast explaining the aid options for those who have served in the military.

You can read more about it at the eMail Our Military blog, or download the podcast here.

How cool is this?  I could go for a fly-fishing trip right about now.  Kudos to the team at Project Healing Waters.  This is straight from their website:

Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. is dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active duty military personnel and veterans through fly fishing and fly tying education and outings.

For more information, check out their website:

Seven months later… and we’re back.  Here’s a quick update.

This is kind of embarrassing but it’s the truth.  There was a point where we had to switch all of the JibberJobber stuff off of the GoDaddy servers (they were not serving us well, and our users were having problems).  In all of the switching, we kind of lost control of the URL transitioninghome.com, and something happened to this blog and … well, I thought it was kind of done.

The special offer has never expired, and it won’t expire, but this blog dissappeared for a bit.

But we’re back.  Thanks to some close friends who we met a few months ago, we got the idea of creating an entirely new domain called JibberJobberUSA.com.  And when we got that all setup I asked my main programmer if he could find the old posts and … well, here we are

With JibberJobberUSA.com we should be able to communicate our message and offering better.  Back when I first started JibberJobber was just a few months old and it was very difficult to talk about it to any official person… whether they were military or not.

But already with this new domain and the logo and branding it’s been a lot easier.  And we have some great plans.  Stay tuned, and you’ll see this unfold!  It should be something awesome to watch!

I thought they had a different name, but here is some info on an interesting career opportunity. I have lots of federal employees in my family, and even a cousin who is just finishing his career as a border patrol agent (or whatever they are called). Good steady job, decent money, and interesting work. Can be brainy or brawny, either way it won’t be too boring, and definitely meaningful.

My last post was on getting that job. What an interesting topic. An expert in this field had a great post on a study of university grads, talking about how “recent grads found the job hunt to be long, arduos and stressful…” Duh. If they find it to be so hard, why is it going to be any easier to anyone else? I know plenty of folks from all kind of backgrounds, with all kinds of skills that find the same thing. In fact, on Monday I met a guy who had been in special ops, speaks five languages, has worked in a lot of anti-American places, and is finding it VERY difficult to get a job. He thinks that it is because people are afraid of his background - I found this to be really quite interesting considering his broad and deep skillset.

But enough about “getting the job.” The truth is there are jobs, and lots of them. You may need to learn some job-search techniques, and it would be helpful to understand that you’ll need to incorporate them throughout the rest of your career… what? Just remember, the average worker changes jobs every 2.8 years, or 3-5 years or whatever. If this is the case make sure that you are doing things that ensure your time between jobs is as short as possible. All of my job transitions happened because of people I knew… I think some experts call that networking (even though I didn’t know that is what I was doing).

So, why do these transitions happen every 2.8 years? Well, there are a bunch of reasons. I’m sure you’ve read about Intel’s 10,000-person layoff. And that is just one wave of many in a move to reduce expenses. And this has been followed up with Ford’s announcements to cut a bunch of jobs. Of course you know that many jobs are moving overseas. So, one reason is that the jobs are disappearing - this is something that you can’t really change or avoid - it is out of your control.

Another factor for the job changes is that people outgrow their position. I’ve talked to a number of veterans coming back from war that have had life changing experiences that make them rethink their careers. Many are opting to leave what they previously did and put their new skills into practice. That happens all the time, where workers feel that they have reached the top of their game, there are no promotion opportunities, and they choose to look somewhere else. This might be with another company and a different career path or starting their own business.

The bottom line is that the awesome pension and heavy-benefit jobs of yesteryear are just that - history. Today’s worker is more mobile, changing more frequently, and the career we’ll have looks a lot different than the career our fathers had. Here is another Secrets of the Job Hunt post that I think is a great read: what the new job market is.

What do I think about all this? Well, instead of steaming over these stats, I figure we just have to get used to it and figure out how the play the game. Learn how to navigate the job transitions, and figure out how to get the most out of it. There really is quite a bit of opportunity for the person that “gets it.” But make sure you get it!

Search for jobs and careers at JobCentral.

Hey folks, I know that you will go through some debriefing or training or whatever that will spell out the easy steps of getting into a real career. I’m sure it will include getting a college degree, having a sparkling resume and applying to a bunch of jobs. With a hint of “networking” thrown into the mix.

If it is so easy, how come there are so many people that can’t quite get into a dream career path? And I’m not talking about the sluffers - I’m talking about folks that have done the “1-2-3″. Take me, for example - I have an undergrad in CIS and an MBA. I have had middle/senior management positions, and my resume bleeds results. But I couldn’t get a job. And I didn’t go to school for all those years just to be unemployed!

Here are a few examples of this… at Barbara Ehrenreich’s blog there are some great comments about who is ending up unemployed - these are highly qualified white collar folks… out of work - unemployed attorney’s… wouldn’t you think this would be a great career path?

So what’s the answer? I think it is a major paradigm shift. Its clear that the cradle-to-grave days are gone… geez, can you find anyone that offers a sweet pension, like our parents got in the olden days? Did you know that the average job change will occur every 2.8 years? Did you know that the folks that get ahead are the ones that know how to network? And how meaningful is that college degree now… even my MBA is becoming a dime-a-dozen.

There is not a 1-2-3 anymore. You need to develop a sophisticated career strategy. What you want and how you will accomplish it. Your military service is a big part of that, but don’t slack off. Learn more about what you could and should be doing to achieve the success that you are ultimately looking for. Stay tuned on this blog, and subscribe to http://www.JibberJobber.com/blog for daily job seeker tips. I guarantee nobody cares about your career more than you do - or more than you should.

I just learned that I have a corporate recruiter with an immediate need to fill 60 positions in the Midland/Odessa area. Relocation is available. These jobs start between 40k and 50k, with the potential to go up from there.

Of particular interest are diesel mechanics and electronic technicians. And anyone with an E5 or higher is highly preferred.

If you have a GED/high school diploma, and can pass the usual screening (read: clean record, no DUIs, etc.) and want to enter into what could be a great career path opportunity, get in touch with me - jason@jibberjobber.com.

Please pass this on to anyone that you might think is interested - and let anyone serving in Iraq know that there are jobs ready and waiting for them when they return! These just happen to be exceptional opportunities… more to come.

Visit Recruit.net to find Australia jobs.

So I’ve never been in the military. I went to school on an Army base outside of the country, and my father-in-law just retired from the Airforce. And my wife’s cousin is in the national guard (got back a few months ago from Iraq). But not me - I’m just a keyboard pounder
That’s why I got an e-mail from someone in the Marines telling me that Marines are not soldiers - rather, they are Marines (and be sure to put it in uppercase). So for all of the e-mails I sent out, the press releases, etc., let me apologize, and set it straight. In the past when I said “soldier”, what I meant was:

Marines for the Marine Corp,
Sailors for the Navy (and Coast Guard?),
Soldiers for the Army, and
Airmen for the Air Force.

And I’m not completely sure about that - I wonder if there are exceptions. But it doesn’t matter - no matter what you are, you are serving my country, my children, and our future, and I appreciate it!

The offer still stands for all soldiers, all Marines, all Airmen and all Sailors! Go to JibberJobber and click on the Military Special Offer button.

This week I met with a corporate recruiter (which means he only recruits for one company) to discuss opportunities for soldiers coming home. He is anxious to talk with you, and wanted me to convey some opportunities that he has.

I can’t share the details of this opportunity online, but here are some details. Note: there are literally over 1,000 openings each year - so if you are qualified and interested there is a very high chance of getting on with this company when you get back

• the company is one of the largest in the U.S. - very stable
• the industry is petroleum services - so it will be around for a while
• the type of work is “physical labor”… kind of like construction work, it is outdoors, etc.
• in some locations the schedule is something like 2 weeks on 2 weeks off, or 3 weeks on 3 weeks off
• there are locations all over the place (even international), with a relocation allowance
• benefits are in-line with what you’d expect with a big company like this
• the pay starts between 40k - 50k and can go up to about 100k - apparently E5s can get to 80k-100k within a year or two

This is a great opportunity. There are three specific job titles that he needs to fill. They are looking for leadership and ability, and the only education needed is a GED or high school diploma. I will have this in a more traditional job board presentation in a few weeks. For now, if you are interested I need to know:

1. when you are available (ie., when are you coming home?)
2. some pre-screening questions (about felonies, DUI’s, drug use, etc.)

Drop me a note (jason@jibberjobber.com) and I will reply personally with more specifics. Note that I will only communicate this information to JibberJobber users right now. Go get a free account at JibberJobber (click on the Military Offer on the right, and then sign up for a free account) and then shoot me off an e-mail.