I work as a Job Training and Development Specialist for public housing, low income, people in government subsidized housing, people with criminal histories, and people with other barriers to employment. My program is very good at what it does and we post some very impressive results at the end of the year to our grant’s funders.
There are many other programs in our area, mostly church outreach programs, that have also started to help people find jobs with the current economic situation. I get calls from the programs that want our list of current job openings. My current list of jobs comes from knowledge of local employer’s websites, relationships with employers, and basic job search skills (news papers, in store advertisements, word of mouth). I will not share my list with any other agency simply because it takes away from our results that we post to our funders. They’re competition and we’re not about to just hand over our secret sauce to them. My personal opinion of these little groups is that they mean well, but have no training or understanding about how to identify and remove barriers to employment. Though many people blame the economy, many unemployed often need training on how to search and obtain jobs- that’s what I do.
The only way to get my list is by being a participant in my program. It doesn’t mean that their clients can’t be in both programs, but they don’t seem to want to work it out that way. We’re not a job hot line, we don’t mail out job lists, and we certainly don’t operate over the phone. They must come in and attend a 3 hour workshop that covers where to start all the way to their first day on the job. Will these agencies come in and try to pass themselves off as clients? They’ve tried in the past, but since I implemented the workshops, it’s stopped. If they do come to my workshop (which they’re welcome to come and observe) and start distributing my materials and books (that I wrote) I’ll put a stop to it.
So on Friday I get a call from some church wanting my list of jobs for their outreach program. I explain the program, tell the caller I’ll be happy to work with their clients and she stops me mid sentence, “You don’t understand, I just need the list of jobs you have for our participants.”
. I explain to her that the job list is only for our clients, but if she wants to work with us she’s welcome to talk to my boss and I give her his info. Today I get a message from her saying that she’s talked with my boss and he told her to tell me it was ok to give her the list and that she would like it weekly.. My boss knows how I feel about giving that list out and he’d never tell someone to tell me it was ok. I confirm and he
“you know I wouldn’t say that!”. Needless to say, I’ve confidently “lost her number” ho-hum.
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