Employment Assistance Through Deseret Industries

[Kenngo1969]

To be honest, I never considered Deseret Industries a viable option for possibly solving my long-term employment woes because I always assumed that it was geared toward helping people secure employment in retail and related pursuits.  However, I found the following on LDS.org at the following address - https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/articles/deseret-industries-may-be-an-option?lang=eng:

 

Success through Deseret Industries

Shelley

Shelley had been a stay-at-home mom for 17 years and hadn’t worked in a professional company since working in a bank for a few months before she’d moved. So when her husband passed away unexpectedly, she needed work experience to find a job and provide for her family. Her bishop recommended she go to Deseret Industries for help. Through the job training program, she discovered she would do well in an office setting, so she took classes to update her computer skills and was given a chance to work in the facility’s office. She also finished a business partnership working at the local college she attended. She learned about résumés and interviewing from a Church employment resource center and soon found a job at a corporate office 20 minutes from her home. Shelley credits her experience at Deseret Industries as a great blessing in her life that gave her the encouragement to succeed.

 

 

 

Is anyone aware of someone who has found employment in non-retail (and UN-related) industries through Deseret Industries?  If so, can you elaborate on how it came about?  (I just e-mailed my Bishop and Ward Employment Specialist for more information, so those two bases are covered.  Thanks!)

Edited February 27, 2015 by Kenngo1969

[Tacenda]

To be honest, I never considered Deseret Industries a viable option for possibly solving my long-term employment woes because I always assumed that it was geared toward helping people secure employment in retail and related pursuits. However, I found the following on LDS.org at the following address - https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/articles/deseret-industries-may-be-an-option?lang=eng:

Is anyone aware of someone who has found employment in non-retail (and UN-related) industries through Deseret Industries? If so, can you elaborate on how it came about? (I just e-mailed my Bishop and Ward Employment Specialist for more information, so those two bases are covered. Thanks!)

I have neighbors that are over the employees, I'll ask them next time I see them. Edited February 27, 2015 by Tacenda

[Kenngo1969]

I have neighbors that are over the employees, I'll ask them next time I see them.

Thanks!

[ksfisher]

To be honest, I never considered Deseret Industries a viable option for possibly solving my long-term employment woes because I always assumed that it was geared toward helping people secure employment in retail and related pursuits.  However, I found the following on LDS.org at the following address - https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/articles/deseret-industries-may-be-an-option?lang=eng:

 

 

Is anyone aware of someone who has found employment in non-retail (and UN-related) industries through Deseret Industries?  If so, can you elaborate on how it came about?  (I just e-mailed my Bishop and Ward Employment Specialist for more information, so those two bases are covered.  Thanks!)

There is a truck driver at my work who came to us through a similar program from Deseret Transportation. I believe Deseret Manufacturing also has training programs available to help people learn job skills and secure full time employment.

If your bishop and ward employment specialist can't help you I'm sure that you could find information at an LDS employment center.

[Kenngo1969]

There is a truck driver at my work who came to us through a similar program from Deseret Transportation. I believe Deseret Manufacturing also has training programs available to help people learn job skills and secure full time employment.

If your bishop and ward employment specialist can't help you I'm sure that you could find information at an LDS employment center.

Good info ... Grazie tanto.

 

P.S.: My understanding is that one needs a Bishop's referral; he can't just walk in off the street.  Further light and knowledge is appreciated.   Thx ....

Edited February 27, 2015 by Kenngo1969

[ERayR]

To be honest, I never considered Deseret Industries a viable option for possibly solving my long-term employment woes because I always assumed that it was geared toward helping people secure employment in retail and related pursuits.  However, I found the following on LDS.org at the following address - https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/articles/deseret-industries-may-be-an-option?lang=eng:

 

 

Is anyone aware of someone who has found employment in non-retail (and UN-related) industries through Deseret Industries?  If so, can you elaborate on how it came about?  (I just e-mailed my Bishop and Ward Employment Specialist for more information, so those two bases are covered.  Thanks!)

 

In some areas DI runs a full employment agency.

[Kenngo1969]

In some areas DI runs a full employment agency.

The LDS Employment Resource Center is next door here.  While I haven't done much searching there for clerical/office/administrative support positions.  I'm in sort of a no-man's land in which it seems as though people, however well-intentioned they are (and I certainly don't question their intentions) tell me either, "Come back when you get a law license" [s.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah's Professional Development Office, which is rather ironic, since one of their "sales pitches" is "Come see us even if you're not sure you want to practice law"]; or, "We're great at providing general job-searching and job-acquisition advice, but we're not really geared toward helping aspiring professionals" [i went to one or two LDS professional networking meetings and was the only aspiring legal professional there; most everyone else was in business or in information technology].  I'm currently in Utah Workforce Services' "Work Success" Program, to which I was pawned off by our local Vocational Rehabilitation agency.

 

I'm not really interested in sales: Even posting on CareerBuilder and Monster, the only leads I've gotten are calls from people who want to recruit me to do insurance or benefit sales.  Some people are born to sell: I met a few in my short career as a telephone solicitor for Feature Films for Families (enough to decide that I'm not one of them).  And every time I search for "Clerical," it returns a bunch of telephone customer service jobs, which I don't want to do, either.  (Searching under "Office" is better, but not much ...)  

 

As much I'd like to work in the legal field, she's a fickle mistress: she's led me on with the occasional one-night stand and vague promises of something longer term but nothing more concrete  than that ... for years.  And a careless psych eval I had from a rotten evaluator (who knows? Maybe he just had a bad day [or one bad eval] and otherwise is brilliant?) any chance I ever had (slim and none, to begin with) of practicing law in Utah has been shot to hell.

 

Office support/administrative-clerical support: personal predilections notwithstanding, if that's what I can get, that's what I'm aiming for.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Kenngo1969

[Tacenda]

Ken, I'm somewhat a hermit, thinking of asking my neighbor's wife via FB PM, your question.  But as brain dead as I've been lately...forget what things names are, you should have seen me today while sub'g third grade, I better have you type out the question verbatim so I get the answer/answers you need. 

[sheilauk]

Do they have legal secretaries in the US? I qualified as a lawyer and worked as one for a long time. When I quit, due to stress, after a while I wanted to work in law again but not as a lawyer so I finally was able to get a job as a secretary in a legal firm which I like doing a lot. It helped that I learnt to type in my 20's.

[Kenngo1969]

Do they have legal secretaries in the US? I qualified as a lawyer and worked as one for a long time. When I quit, due to stress, after a while I wanted to work in law again but not as a lawyer so I finally was able to get a job as a secretary in a legal firm which I like doing a lot. It helped that I learnt to type in my 20's.

Yep ... You may need to put on your rose-colored/anti-cynic glasses to adequately deal with what I'm about to tell you: As you are probably aware, there is a tremendous glut of lawyers here across the pond, in part because the American Bar Association refused to cap the number of law schools it accredited because of antitrust concerns.  Would-be attorneys who are lucky enough to find a job in the law are settling for work as paralegals, paralegals are settling for work as legal secretaries, and the legal secretaries? Well, they're just plain out of luck.  And would-be attorneys who cannot find work in the law?  Well, there's always WalMart and Home Depot.  And of all of the things I learned in high school, far and away the skill I use the most ... between submitting the occasional Op-Ed, reworking my resume for the 1,750,375,162,500th time, e-mail communications, et cetera, is typing.  (I'm not the fastest, but I am pretty accurate. )

 

Thank you for your encouragement.

 

By the way, lest anyone think I'm simply turning my nose up at retail, that's not it at all: I have a disability that forecloses certain occupational choices.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Kenngo1969

[Kenngo1969]

Ken, I'm somewhat a hermit, thinking of asking my neighbor's wife via FB PM, your question.  But as brain dead as I've been lately...forget what things names are, you should have seen me today while sub'g third grade, I better have you type out the question verbatim so I get the answer/answers you need. 

 

Is anyone aware of someone who has found employment in non-retail (and UN-related) industries through Deseret Industries?  If so, can you elaborate on how it came about?  (I just e-mailed my Bishop and Ward Employment Specialist for more information, so those two bases are covered.      Thanks!)

 

 

I also included this link at lds.org, that discusses "Shelley" who found an office job through Deseret

Industries: https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/articles/deseret-industries-may-be-an-option?lang=eng

 

Tacenda, you might simply send them a link to this conversation here on the Board: http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/64998-employment-assistance-through-deseret-industries/#entry1209471449

[Tacenda]

I just sent her a message!

[Tacenda]

She said it's mostly sales clerk or warehouse (?) jobs at the DI. But if you get a bishop's referral to speak with a development counselor they could help see if there's a good course or path to put you on.

[Kenngo1969]

She said it's mostly sales clerk or warehouse (?) jobs at the DI. But if you get a bishop's referral to speak with a development counselor they could help see if there's a good course or path to put you on.

Thanks much, Tacenda.

[Tacenda]

Thanks much, Tacenda.

I'm asking the other neighbor too, their husband is in the Salt Lake area. The neighbor I asked first works in the Ogden area.

Yesterday was a bad day, I failed to ask and post the links and your exact OP question to the first neighbor just asked without the c/p. Now I've gone in and added those and will do the same with this other neighbor in the Salt Lake area. Both are high up, for crying out loud my own bishop works in the Joseph Smith building and is pretty high up in the Humanitarian office, maybe I can ask him.

Getting to know you here and your credentials, somethings got to work.

[Calm]

Maybe offering to help out ar some charity can give your work experience and networking until the real thing comes along?

[Kenngo1969]

Maybe offering to help out ar some charity can give your work experience and networking until the real thing comes along?

Could do.  I'm not against it; I've volunteered a ton (though not necessarily in my would-be chosen field) in the last nine years. But, as for volunteering in my would-be chosen field goes, everybody seems to think (right or wrong) that there are enough liability issues involved that they ought to err on the side of caution: "Thanks, but no thanks!" seems to be the consensus.

[Kenngo1969]

... Getting to know you here and your credentials, somethings got to work.

It ought to, eventually.

 

P.S.: Sorry you had a bad day.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Kenngo1969

[Calm]

Could do.  I'm not against it; I've volunteered a ton (though not necessarily in my would-be chosen field) in the last nine years. But, as for volunteering in my would-be chosen field goes, everybody seems to think (right or wrong) that there are enough liability issues involved that they ought to err on the side of caution: "Thanks, but no thanks!" seems to be the consensus.

How annoying.

[rpn]

Go to your local disability rights office and ask if they need any help, hopefully paid, but you'd be willing to volunteer for a while.  

 

Do the same with your legal aid offices and any other non-profits --- all of these deal with attorneys who are volunteering their time but who do have jobs.   One of them may decide to hang their own shingle out and need a para.   Or you may decide you can start your own disability advocacy practice (in which case you'll probably want to join COPAA.org.)

[Kenngo1969]

Go to your local disability rights office and ask if they need any help, hopefully paid, but you'd be willing to volunteer for a while.  

 

Do the same with your legal aid offices and any other non-profits --- all of these deal with attorneys who are volunteering their time but who do have jobs.   One of them may decide to hang their own shingle out and need a para.   Or you may decide you can start your own disability advocacy practice (in which case you'll probably want to join COPAA.org.)

Thank "ewe"!

[Calm]

You might look into doing online research or something else as a business of your own.  My husband doesn't have any classes at the moment or in the summer that would be worthwhile to sit in on, but he suggests checking into the various Small Business Development Centers (there is one at UVU, another at SLCC and others around) as they have a number of classes that could help get you started (IIRC one of your problems was the unequal balance between education and work experience…solution…hire yourself   ).