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Cameron-Brooks August 2010 Career Conference

The Cameron-Brooks team and the August Career Conference candidates have just completed their work in Charlotte, NC.  As we move into the follow-up interview phase of this process, we are excited about the number of pursuits achieved by the candidates – over 60% of interviews resulted in a successful connection.  We had 14 support team members attend the Conference with the candidates to help them gather information and develop their connecting points.  As we prepared for the Conference, it was exciting to see the level of demand for C-B development candidates.  This translated into a high number of interviews for each candidate and a great level of energy at the Conference as the candidates stayed busy with interviews on Monday and Tuesday.

The need for proactive leadership in Corporate America helped drive the number and extent of career opportunities at the August Conference.  It was exciting to see how many industries came to the Conference seeking development candidates to help them move forward with key initiatives.  This meant that candidates were able to see how their backgrounds related to a wide variety of opportunities and across industries including: technology, mining, alternative energy, consumer products, consulting, medical devices, telecommunications, industrial products along with others.  We heard from a number of business leaders who, as they developed plans for the path forward, knew they wanted to hire junior military officers as key drivers for their business.  They like the fact that Cameron-Brooks candidates have been proactive about managing their careers and have taken the time to identify their leadership skills and look ahead to applying them in a development career.

For our candidates, these opportunities helped get them excited about the roles they could take on in their business career.  They found that the job descriptions helped them see how they would be drivers of change and have the ability to think “outside the box” to find solutions.  Some candidates were surprised at how positive our client companies were about the growth opportunities in this economy.  A key learning point for many of the junior military officers at the C-B conference was that great businesses look for leaders to create growth, not react to market conditions.  The candidates had an opportunity to see the benefit of all their effort to be the “go-to” person throughout their time in the military.  The effort that they had put in to “break out” among their peers was exactly the type of break out effort that our client companies were seeking in order to drive success in their business.

Joel has put a lot of work into a series of blog posts to aid in visualizing your success in business and in the interviewing process.  I hope you have taken, or will take the time to review prior blog posts  he has written to help you to picture yourself leading proactively in business.  As you gather information about a development career, you will gain confidence in being that go-to person for an organization.  We had 23 alumni who felt so strongly about their fit for Corporate America, that they came back to hire Cameron-Brooks candidates from the August Conference for their company.  There is no question that if you are a successful officer in the military, then you’ve been effective at being a proactive leader.  We look forward to helping you understand how you can take that ability to a business career.

I asked many of the candidates from the Conference to record their thoughts and recommendations to help you with your success.  I recorded these Tuesday night after completion of their second full day of interviews and, as you’ll see, they are tired but excited.  I hope you get value from their ideas and recommendations and will take the opportunity to use this resource to help with your decisions and planning.  We continue to look for ways to provide you with as much information as possible to help with your career.  Our recruiters will be out on the road, and we’ll be maximizing our use of time on the phone and sharing information on the internet to help you.  Please let us know the best way to get you the information you need.  Thank you for your service and for your continued relationship with Cameron-Brooks.