At long last our book, Jails to Jobs: Seven Steps to Becoming Employed, is out and available on Amazon.
Since 2008, Jails to Jobs’ workshops and job search and restorative materials have reached more than 3,000 inmates. In our workshops, we help soon-to-be-released inmates explore meaning and purpose in their lives while they learn about job search strategies. This book is a direct result of our workshops, the materials we disseminate and the feedback we have received from inmates and other experts in the field.
If you are a regular reader of our blog or visitor to our website, you will find even more tips and information that will help you or the formerly incarcerated individuals you work with achieve job search success.
From adjusting attitudes and finding a free tattoo-removal program to creating a job search team and using a JIST card instead of a resume, the 176-page book suggests unconventional strategies that you may not have considered before. It even includes ways to highlight the skills you or your clients developed in prison rehabilitation and reentry.
Jails to Jobs: Seven Steps to Becoming Employed offers insight into how to deal with your “record,” recommending an approach that can be very effective if handled sincerely and honestly.
In addition, Jails to Jobs: Seven Steps to Becoming Employed shows applicants how to convince employers that hiring them makes financial sense – based on tax credits and a government bonding program. It also includes job-training resources for those who need an extra boost and information on self-employment for those who prefer a different path.
One reviewer on Amazon wrote, “There are so many specific suggestions in this book, if you do any 10 of them you’ll improve your chances of finding a job. If you seriously follow through the seven steps, you can be confident your growing job search skills will present your best self to the right potential employers. And – here’s a secret – you don’t have to be in reentry from detention to benefit from the sound advice in these pages.”
Yes, the book could work for anyone, and we’d be happy if people in the wider population find it useful. But it is those with criminal records who may need extra support, and for them this book has been written.
Although only recently released online, it is already being used to create a job training program in at least one state prison, and several others are interested in using it as well.
Whether you’re a formerly incarcerated job seeker, a job developer, a prison official or volunteer, or anyone who has a connection with those who have been released from prison and are looking for a job, we hope you’ll find this book useful.
To order a copy, please visit Amazon.com.
