James David is the perfect Goodwill spokesman. The 28-year-old graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism School in 2003, and with the job market less then welcoming, he headed west with his roommate. When he arrived here, David stepped out of the car in the Tenderloin, and had his ah ha moment. “I don’t want to write about the world. I want to save the world.”
And right now, that means helping the unemployed get work.
He’s been doing that at the One Stop Career Link Center at Goodwill at 1500 Mission St. It opened in October of last year just as the banking system began its major meltdown. Even in this economy, David and others at the center said, it’s possible to find jobs, but it’s not easy. In the last few months, the center has “averaged” about two hires per month, according to Business Relations Specialist, One Stop Services Jason Smith
No matter, Program Manager of WIA Services, Goodwill Patricia Borrego said they do everything to find resources for their clients. “If we don’t know it, we find it,” she said. In addition to offering workshops in areas such as resume, interview, and Internet / Email, the Goodwill One Stop connects clients to unions and legal assistance.
Most importantly, they receive fresh leads from CalJOBS through the Employment Development Department—kept in job lead books—that are reserved anywhere from a day to two weeks before being released to the general public, according to Borrego. “The whole idea [is] self-directed, self-guided job search,” she said.
Borrego coordinates the orientations at most of the One Stop Career Link Centers for the Work Force Investment Act (WIA), a “federal job search assistant program” that enables clients to immerse in a job hunt from resume writing, to training, to going out on interviews.
Sessions are held Wednesdays from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m, and to be eligible, adults must be 18 years or older, have U.S. citizenship or authorization to do work in the United States, and males must be registered with selective services. WIA participants can have one-on-one sessions with career advisers, who lead clients through a screening process that can take “up to 30 days” to complete.
It includes everything from the basics of writing resumes to job searching, and “skills assessment.” In job placement assistance, the career adviser will filter job leads and coordinate interviews. The training assistance program caters to someone whose “job market [is] disappearing,” such as construction workers and car dealership salesmen, or to someone whose labor activity is low because of the recession. It involves “labor market research” and determining “occupations that are steady or growing.”
Out of San Francisco’s six One Stop Career Link Centers, only the one at Goodwill offers PESCO, an aptitude skills test, to the general public, according to Borrego. Funded by Microsoft, the program matches the test taker with the “kinds of industries [that] are suited for their skills,” said David.
Borrego described how one man wanted to transition from the Internet industry to nursing. The test illustrated that his interests and strengths were “communication, sports, [and] counseling,” advising him to go into physical therapy instead. According to David, the test is so thorough that it can take up to four hours to complete. PESCO is available Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
David said he’s seen the services help job seekers because some have been “out of the game for a while.” For example, Borrego said that some of the newly unemployed worked in the same field for 20 years and must now explore other careers. “Being unemployed for three months is frustrating,” she said. “Transition is difficult. Change is difficult.”
Some customers discover that their job options are better than they thought. One woman was in the medical field and “wanted a career change” because she had “no luck” in her “job search.” Borrego explained to her that she was “in a field that’s in demand,” with about 2,500 job opportunities available over the next couple of years, compared to a sheet metal worker who had only 89. “Her face, her demeanor completely changed,” said Borrego.
David said that the One Stop at Goodwill also offers programs for discouraged workers, those who want work, but have not looked for work in the past four weeks.
“What we try to do is monitor that closely,” said David. For example, One Stop has case managers who “talk to people about their feelings about being discouraged in the job market.” Borrego said that although the Goodwill One Stop does not have counseling opportunities, it does “offer connections” to free services, such as mental health.
While Borrego thinks that it’s a good idea to choose a couple of One Stop Career Link Centers that the customer feels “comfortable with,” she warns customers from getting “stuck in a rut” and encourages them to “expand” their options and to “think outside the box.” “I think that people need to find a balance between different job search methods,” she said. Her “experience has been” that the “typical way someone finds a job is through their networking,” such as family, friends, and acquaintances.
And for those with nerves “poorer” than Pride and Prejudice’s Mrs. Bennet there’s the OneStopSF Twitter feed.