Background

I had a conversation with my father over the July 4th weekend about the job market. Last year, he retired from a senior management position (Mill Manager) in a major manufacturing company (Kimberly Clark). He is considering going back to work in a limited capacity, maybe as a consultant or advisor to companies who are looking for an experienced professional.

He exhibited a bit of frustration over the weekend about the lack of jobs. He’s been contacted by several so-called ‘consulting’ companies, but for the most part, they seem to be selling other services like training and database access. For the past year, I’ve tried to get him to start blogging and create a profile on LinkedIn, but he doesn’t quite understand the full range of the medium. Or maybe I’m not doing a great job of articulating the benefits. Either way, he hasn’t done it.

Experiment

So, I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to use Twitter and WordPress (this post) to help him locate a new job. The benefits of him finding a new job are two-fold: (1) He’ll have a new opportunity to use his experience and (2) He’ll truly understand the power of tech.

This idea is derived from Stanley Milgram’s classic small world experiment.

This will be interesting in several ways. I’m very keen on watching the path of the message through the web.

Second, I’m interested to watch how this message will cross industries. Most of my contacts are in the tech or social media world. I’m hoping that someone in the tech world is connected to folks in other industries, like the industrial market. I wonder if anyone in the industrial market is on Twitter?

I need your participation

Here’s what you can do. Send this post over email, IM, and Twitter to anyone who you think might help. It could be a recruiter, an HR person, or an company executive. Or, it could just be someone well-connected on the InterWebs. My contact information is below as well as a summary of my father’s qualifications.

Thanks for all your help. I’ll post details and follow-up as things progress.

- Kyle

(Note: He does not know I’m doing this, so I’m acting as an intermediary to filter out spammers and spambots. My email is mkcraig@gmail.com. If you have a serious inquiry, email me and I’ll pass his contact info along.)

A few details about the best-fit job:

- The company will probably be in the industrial or manufacturing market, although his functional skills could be applied everywhere

- Company size will probably be medium-large (employees > 100)

- He does not want to re-locate, but is willing to travel.

Career highlights:

- Expert knowledge of change management, organizational development, Toyota Way, “step-change” improvement

- Achieved 30% improvement in output/labor cost; 50% improvement in maintenance cost / output; 100 % reduction on outside suppliers in manufacturing mill

- 37 successful years with Fortune 100 company

- Performed turnaround of 2 major manufacturing facilities

- One turnaround became a company model and case study for “Organizational Design and Performance“

- Experienced in operational efficiency, labor/union relations, and productivity improvements

- Education – MBA, corporate Strategic Leadership programs, Executive Leadership degree(from Darden University)

- Awards – 3 time winner of Product System Excellence award