My Story: Diane Duquette

I was on welfare for a long time, but had always hoped to return to work. I began looking but had no success due to my age and prolonged inactivity. It was through my agent at Emploi-Québec that I heard about Goodwill Renaissance Montreal in Quebec.

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My Story: Tony Murray

After my accident, I was unable to work for several years. In November 2012, I felt like it was time for me to go back to work, so I came back to Goodwill to see if I could get a job. The agency hired me to be a cashier in one of the Goodwill retail stores, and a couple of months later, I was employed at the Barksdale Air Force Base Commissary as a shelf stocker.

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Tips to Advance Your Career out of Long-term Unemployment

Being unemployed for any period of time can be difficult to overcome, but as anybody who’s ever been out of work can tell you, it gets harder and harder to find a job the longer you don’t have one, and it’s easy to feel like giving up. But a new handbook from Deloitte includes tips on how to get out of long-term unemployment and back onto the path to success.

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Nonprofits Are Creating Jobs Even in Tough Times

Much has been written about the Great Recession and the impact it continues to have on our economy. It’s been seven years since the housing bubble began to collapse, triggering the worst stock market collapse since the Great Depression and a loss of an estimated $10 to $12 trillion in wealth in both the housing

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Missing in Action – The Long-Term Unemployed

Recent economic news has been brighter as of late with consumer confidence starting to move upward, and monthly unemployment rates and jobless claims declining. But every silver lining has a cloud, and that cloud are people who have been out of work for a long time. Nearly a third of Americans who were unemployed last month have been without a job for 26 or more weeks, double the rate recorded before the recession began late in 2007. Those out of work for extended periods of time are often less likely to be hired than those unemployed for shorter stretches. The result is a more devastating impact to household savings and long-term earning potential for those job seekers.

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How to Explain Gaps in Employment

It is not uncommon for individuals to have gaps in employment at some point during their life. Despite the reason, these gaps will stand out on your résumé, and you may be expected to explain them during an interview. Be prepared to overcome this hurdle by having your answers ready ahead of time. Chances are very high that the employer will ask questions about it, and not having a reason for your employment gap may lead the employer to draw their own conclusions.

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Three Social Media Sites to Use for Networking and Job Searching

Traditionally, searching for a job meant face-to-face networking, going through classified ads in print publications, and attending job fairs. Today, using social media to network and find job opportunities can give you a big advantage over individuals who are only using print and in-person approaches to landing a job. Each social network has its particular advantages, but there are three sites that deserve special consideration from job seekers.

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My Story—Paul Rosenstock

The message I would have for employers is to be open minded. I do understand that there’s a huge stigma attached to people who have been incarcerated. That stigma, a lot of times, is generated by what people know, which is unfortunately what they see on television and what they read in the newspaper. That only portrays a very small part of what people who have been incarcerated are.

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My Story—Dwayne Hodges

When I came to the Goodwill, I had just been released from prison. I had just served 9 years of a 12-year sentence, a federal sentence for crack cocaine distribution. I was actually in the United States Marine Corps. I was in the Marine Corps from 1990 to 1994. When I got out of the

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Tacoma Goodwill Employee Testifies Before Congressional Subcommittee

This week I had the great pleasure of working with Sandra Collins, assistant store manager from Goodwill Olympics and Rainier Region (Tacoma, WA), as she testified before a House Ways and Means subcommittee during a hearing titled Subsidized Job Programs and Their Effectiveness in Helping Families Go to Work and Escape Poverty.

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