The Solar Guild for job candidates and people at work

• Instructions and success standards can change across leaders, shifts, teams, or operating conditions.
• A person may have relevant skills but still lack the first relevant opportunity to demonstrate them.
• Relevant contributions often remain inside an employer, class, volunteer role, or project without a portable and understandable record.
• Résumés, titles, and polished outputs do not always reveal who framed the problem, checked the facts, made the tradeoffs, or delivered the required result.

Request one focused 15-minute conversation about a concrete work or career goal, barrier, decision, or next step. The conversation may produce a clearer problem definition, a candid observation, a resource or referral, a preparation step, an invitation to apply for a later Objective, or a reason to stop. None is guaranteed.

The intended permanent policy is that this entry conversation remain a no-fee public service. That commitment does not create unlimited capacity: requests are reviewed and scheduled as capacity permits, and the service may use a waitlist or pause new appointments rather than promise responsiveness it cannot provide.

• A Work & Career Conversation does not silently enroll someone in a talent pool, create a candidate profile, or authorize employer contact.
• Raw notes, uncertainties, personal context, and facilitator impressions from the conversation remain private operating records and are not shared with an employer or project owner.
• The Solar Guild does not provide candidate matching, employer introductions, a jobs marketplace, or a general professional network.
• A person may separately apply for a bounded Solar Guild Objective. Participation requires explicit scope, access, compensation, ownership, privacy, and review terms.
• Direct identifiers, contact details, and free text from the intake are scheduled for irreversible removal at 180 days. Restricted pseudonymous consent and lifecycle evidence is scheduled for deletion at three years.
• Only separately consented broad cohort counts may persist after that boundary. No raw notes, verbatim narratives, contact data, exact dates, source-request identifiers, or identity crosswalk enter the aggregate. A cell needs at least ten request submissions before it can be considered for public or partner-facing reporting, and every disclosure still requires review; this is not a claim of ten distinct people or guaranteed anonymity.
• Any later contribution record remains participant-controlled, correctable, and limited to one bounded contribution. It is not a résumé, candidate ranking, placement recommendation, or general professional profile.

An employer, school, funder, association, workforce program, or other institution may refer participants, contribute expertise, identify a real problem, provide access, or support shared capacity only under disclosed terms. Institutional participation must create relevant value without buying control over the person or the evidence.

• Money, sponsorship, partnership, or institutional status does not purchase access to private conversation notes or unapproved participant information.
• Support does not purchase participation priority, favorable review, a desired contribution-record outcome, governance authority, or a favorable public claim.
• Participant information is not shared with an employer or project owner through the career-conversation service.
• An institution retains authority over its own lawful hiring, safety, professional, and operating decisions; The Solar Guild retains responsibility for its privacy promises, records, and public claims.

• The problem and scope the contributor accepted.
• The artifact or result they contributed.
• Tools, teammates, AI systems, templates, and other assistance that materially shaped the work.
• What a relevant reviewer concluded under a stated standard.
• How the person or organization that needed the work responded.
• Corrections, disagreement, and limits on what the record can establish.

• Know whether the activity is a private conversation, Objective, review, or contribution record; one does not silently authorize another.
• See the terms, expected result, reviewer, privacy rules, and compensation before committing to an Objective.
• Know who can access each record and what may be shared externally.
• Correct factual errors and preserve material disagreement with a review.
• Keep private career or workplace preparation separate from employer-funded or organization-sponsored Objectives.
• Work creating commercial value, replacing paid work, or otherwise likely to be purchased should ordinarily be paid. A noncash Objective must primarily benefit the learner or public, remain time-limited and non-displacing, and provide value without depending on a speculative future opportunity.
• Leave a voluntary Objective at any time without a negative reputation mark, subject only to reasonable safety, confidentiality, and handoff duties agreed beforehand.

• Does a 15-minute conversation leave participants clearer, better prepared, or connected to a genuinely relevant next step?
• Can requests be reviewed and scheduled fairly when demand exceeds capacity?
• Will participants understand and trust the separation between private support and any later Objective or contribution record?
• Will independent organizations understand and use a scoped, participant-controlled contribution record?
• Can human review remain consistent, affordable, correctable, and relevant?
• Can people with less money, time, confidence, technology, or social capital participate fairly?
• Will any later opportunity justify the time and burden required to create a record?

Use the SGUILD request form to describe one work or career goal without including passwords, confidential employer material, protected health information, or other sensitive records. Requests from Kent, Allegan, Kalamazoo, and Van Buren counties receive founding-pilot priority. People elsewhere may apply; scheduling remains subject to capacity.