Content area
Abstract
Each week, Bill Harris and Shaunda Jeter welcome a new group of jobless Hartford residents to their small office at Greater Hartford Community College.
Jeter and Harris are upbeat when speaking to the newcomers. They have seen their share of success stories. But they also know how tough finding a job can be in an economy battered by almost four years of recession and corporate retrenchment.
Jeter says she and Harris can organize practice interviews for those who feel uneasy about the process. And she tells them how important it is to keep her and Harris informed of the progress of their job hunt.
Full text
Each week, Bill Harris and Shaunda Jeter welcome a new group of jobless Hartford residents to their small office at Greater Hartford Community College.
Jeter, employment coordinator for Project Find, runs the orientation program and tells the new crew -- one day last week it was eight people, two days later it was three more -- about just what help the agency can offer and what steps the job seekers will have to take for themselves.
Project Find can help, Jeter says, but the people looking for jobs will have to do most of the work.
She tells them that Harris, the program's director, spends much of his time trying to find job possibilities with area businesses. Project Find might be able to open a door -- by finding a possible opening or getting a client into the right training program -- but, she stresses, the applicants must win the jobs on their own.
Jeter and Harris are upbeat when speaking to the newcomers. They have seen their share of success stories. But they also know how tough finding a job can be in an economy battered by almost four years of recession and corporate retrenchment.
After the orientation session, they both say one of the tougher tasks is keeping people motivated for what can be a long search.
"You have to let them know things don't happen overnight," Harris says.
Their program, funded by the city of Hartford through the YWCA, is designed to give job seekers tips, leads and skills that will give them an edge on the competition.
But staying upbeat isn't always easy when you're faced with so much hardship.
"We have to give each other pep talks every now and then," Harris says.
"You've got to keep that head up," Jeter adds.
From a staff of four several years ago, Project Find is down to two -- Harris and Jeter. The 15-year-old agency gets about $75,000 a year from the city's Employment Resources Development Authority. It charges no fees to job hunters or prospective employers.
Willie Walker learned about the program through a public-service announcement on television. The Hartford resident and father of two lost his job at Pratt & Whitney in October, shortly after completing a more-than-three-year training program for a job as a machinist.
He is still in the early stages of his job search, and hopes Project Find can help him get leads on work that would let him use the skills he developed at Pratt.
"The market is so bad, you've got to know somebody now," Walker says of the limited job openings.
Harris says Walker's best shot will be with a small or medium-sized machine shop that might want a Pratt-trained worker. The program director's task will be to try to find some possibilities.
Harris has been stepping up his efforts to let businesses know about Project Find and encourage them to look for applicants through his office. He says the office places five or six people a month, a record he is proud of, considering the area's economic condition.
In the orientation, Jeter tells Friday's group that Project Find will help them through the job hunt and the first three months on the job. After an individual interview and evaluation, she will recommend whether they should seek additional training or concentrate solely on the job hunt.
The agency can refer them to area training programs, including several that also have their headquarters at the community college.
Harris urges the job seekers to follow basic search procedures, such as taking the time to make sure they can explain time gaps in their work histories and sending thank-you letters to interviewers as quickly as possible.
Jeter says she and Harris can organize practice interviews for those who feel uneasy about the process. And she tells them how important it is to keep her and Harris informed of the progress of their job hunt.
Jeter says she follows up interviews with her own telephone calls to the company to see how applicants perform. Interviewers might be willing to tell her reasons that applicants don't come across well -- such as bad posture or limited eye contact -- that they might not feel comfortable telling the applicants.
In the orientation session alone, Jeter and Harris give the newcomers more than a dozen suggestions for their job searches.
As Jeter tells them, "What you are looking for is an edge." Michael Remez is a Courant business writer
(Copyright @ The Hartford Courant 1992)