Job help.

[DubaiSis]

In Washington it should be EASY. Get involved in political campaigns, both party and issue. And understand volunteering for a political campaign means doing the grunt work. Trust me, if you show up as promised and do the grunt work as assigned, you will be appreciated and remembered since you will be an oddity. The trick with using campaigns as a stepping stone is you pretty much have to be on the winning side for that to work in the short'ish term.

For others, make sure your resume says what you think it says and what it SHOULD say. I tried to change careers some time ago and was having a terrible time. A temp placement recruiter totally rewrote my resume and I had a job within days. It's not that she lied on my resume but took elements of my experience that I would consider insignificant and she put them front and center as though they were a primary part of my previous job. And on that note, I strongly recommend working as a temp. It will introduce you to career options you might never have considered. But as above, you have to do the crap work for little money. But if you do that, you will be appreciated and remembered.

[AnotherKD]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

In Washington it should be EASY. Get involved in political campaigns, both party and issue. And understand volunteering for a political campaign means doing the grunt work. Trust me, if you show up as promised and do the grunt work as assigned, you will be appreciated and remembered since you will be an oddity. The trick with using campaigns as a stepping stone is you pretty much have to be on the winning side for that to work in the short'ish term.

For others, make sure your resume says what you think it says and what it SHOULD say. I tried to change careers some time ago and was having a terrible time. A temp placement recruiter totally rewrote my resume and I had a job within days. It's not that she lied on my resume but took elements of my experience that I would consider insignificant and she put them front and center as though they were a primary part of my previous job. And on that note, I strongly recommend working as a temp. It will introduce you to career options you might never have considered. But as above, you have to do the crap work for little money. But if you do that, you will be appreciated and remembered.

I echo the part about re-working the resume. Have all sorts of different people look at it, as they will all have different views of it and could help you figure out different ways to highlight different things.

However, I bolded something in the post above. It *should be* easy in DC regarding finding a federal job. It's not that easy. There is a lot of competition for unpaid internships, and most volunteer work doesn't lead to job offers within the organization. The one thing that volunteering really helps with is networking and meeting people from other orgs that may have openings in the future. Most federal jobs around here aren't associated with one party or another, but volunteering for any cause will greatly help with networking and lead you to other options.