Hello, I'm new to this site and am eager to get involved in this mentorship program.
I currently work in DC (Pentagon) but I plan on retiring/working in San Diego in the HR field (2016). Would I be paired with a mentor from San Diego who might have more networking resources in SD, or with someone here in DC with whom I can meet face-to-face? Thank you.
Answers
James,
Colleen's advice is spot on particularly in this already strong military city of San Diego. Getting mentored up is really a good move here to keep you abreast of whether employment is looking good or bad along with other interests. Even now is not too early although California and San Diego have been slow to move up from the financial doldrums. The future is not easy to predict and 2016 is a while off. But, we have been outpacing most of the of the State judging by the employment index. The Fed Bank has us at 6.5 but then, with our climate maybe a lot of folks are not asking and don’t really care if they work or not!
To pick coming to SD this early in your plans suggests you might have some settled or determined reasons to come here. If that is true, now would also be a good time to start looking at property as there are still some good buys left while values and sales are on the increase in some communities while suffering in others. Sales were down for December and January but that is typical. Many here are optimistic about the next couple of years.
If mentors are already on the list who are connected with HR, I would suggest contacting a few and feeling them out for information and their interest to mentor. I am not likely to be of much help because I am not as connected as you would want as the move time approaches. But I would always be happy to lob a few practice pitches if you need them. If I were you, I would consider more than one mentor and you might in a timely way want to start following the area via the local newspaper unless you already have or know the area well.
Good luck.
Bob
Thank you Colleen! I appreciate the information and I'll definitely check out the Mentoring Program area...I can't wait to get started.
Hi James,
Thank you for your service and for joining our ACP AdvisorNet community.
If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to check out ACP's Veteran Mentoring Program (www.acp-usa.org) for the potential opportunity to work with a corporate Mentor. We offer one-on-one yearlong mentorships with business professionals from more than 50 leading companies throughout the country.
During your introductory phone interview with ACP, our staff would discuss various options to try to find you the mentor who will be the best career fit, whether it be someone in San Diego or the DC area. More than half our mentorships are conducted over long-distance and we find that these mentorships are just as productive as face-to-face mentorships, since pairs can communicate frequently via email, phone and videoconferencing.
Please feel free to check out our website for more information:http://acp-usa.org/Mentoring_Program
In the short term, you can also utilize our Advisor+ Directory to search for Advisors on this site who are based in Cailfornia and Washington DC. You can send a private message to Advisors and initiate conversations using this site's private messaging feature. A quick search for Advisors in California returned numerous results which might be of interest to you - https://acp-advisornet.org/directory?sort=&dir=&c=&e=&s=CA
Please feel free to send me a message with any questions you have about ACP's programs.
Your Answer
Pleaselog into answer this question.