Bill Lynch ⋅ Arlington, TX Minuteman Press Ft. Worth, TX ⋅ 40 years experience

Robert, networking is the answer and Linked In is a good online place to start. You can probably productively use 2 hours a day on line. The other six hours you can devote to physically getting out and meeting people. Find a church or organization in your area that has an employment support group. Attend one meeting a week and work with the people you meet there. Volunteer. Contact local charity groups and offer your labor. Working on the weekends you will find the right type of people to network with. There are always the local Chambers...they have events specifically for networking and most don't require membership to visit. The key thing: go to every place you will meet people with a goal, say to meet three people you'd like to follow up with. Get a business card from those three people (or collect their information on paper you will always have with you). Look for ways you can help them. At all cost, don't act needy no matter how needy you feel. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. If your focus is on helping them, not on begging for help for you, you will be welcomed.

Aaron Spool ⋅ West Orange, NJ CIT ⋅ 11 years experience

Robert,

Another thing to do is identify companies and positions that may be a good fit for you. Then you can target your networking as well. Maybe you want to work for a ship/boat producer such as Mercury Marine (http://www.mercurymarine.com/). The more you can identify what you want to do and where you want to do it, and have a great story as to why for both, the easier/more fruitful your networking will be since it will be more targeted.

Ken Sheppard ⋅ Hillsborough, NJ Johnson & Johnson ⋅ 25 years experience

Lots of great advice has preceded me here ... LinkedIn, involvement in community, volunteering, etc. One more I would suggest ... look for (google) professional associations in your chosen field. Many of them hold national conferences that are great for networking. Many of them have regional/local chapters that have conferences and/or regular (monthly) meetings. As was suggested previously, look for opportunities to contribute to the association rather than simply trying to find a job. Perhaps you can join a committee, or delver a presentation at a conference/meeting. Find ways to demonstrate your skills.

Christopher Ahlberg ⋅ Holtsville, NY Recorded Future, Inc. ⋅ 15 years experience

As people say - it's all about LinkedIn. Create a stunning LinkedIn profile yourself. That doesn't mean tons of text, in means relevancy. Tight, crisp. Then start reaching out to people. Join relevant groups, write stuff, etc. Before you blink it's there.

John Kalusa ⋅ Alpharetta, GA Scientific Games ⋅ 10 years experience

Think about the actual skills you used in your NEC. Look online or google the actual skills: supervisor, manager, radio technician, systems monitor or engineer, nuclear etc. See what companies come up in your area.

That way you can identify potential target companies and positions.

James Stewart ⋅ New York, NY ⋅ 5 years experience

Robert,

LinkedIn is great - I have also had some pretty good luck at points using OneWire and Doostang. And the best advice I can give is that when someone responds to you, even if it ends up that they don't have a position available, absolutely leverage that contact in the industry to see if they are able to put you in touch with their contacts who may be in need of someone. You will be suprised how willing people are to reach out on your behalf to put you in touch. Good luck.

James

Roger Sonia ⋅ Peabody, MA Verizon ⋅ 12 years experience

Robert,

I agree with folks that linkedin is a great reasource. It is also important to draw general parallels between your speciality and whatever area you choose to focus on. Like doing work for "internal customers", meeting deadlines etc....Also, I work for Verizon Communications and I know we have a large presence in the DFW area. We have two arms, Wireless and Wireline (Residential/Business). Part of the Business group also includes our Federal systems groups that deal with the US government (most of those positons are in VA I beleive).

Our site is: http://www22.verizon.com/jobs/search-jobs

Tricia Napor ⋅ New York, NY Alcoa ⋅ 6 years experience

I agree with what others wrote about LinkedIn and networking. In my recent job search, I found the website Doostang very helpful for corporate-type jobs. http://www.doostang.com/

Seth Mansur ⋅ Grafton, MA Intelligen.Energy ⋅ 8 years experience

Hi Robert.

My good friend Lee who served 8 years in the Navy is expanding his fitness challenge business. The pay is pretty impressive. I'd give him a call asap before timing changes for his business: Lee, 617 593 6918

-Seth

Mike Currier ⋅ Cumming, GA Verizon ⋅ 18 years experience

If you havent joined LinkedIn yet that would be one of the first places I would go. LinkedIn is like the professional facebook. This will help you establish a professional network and it typically will have career centered groups you can join to also help with networking. Make sure you personalize invitations to people you dont know on LinkedIn. To many people use the generic request and to me that hurts your chance to enhance your networking. Hope this helps!