Plain Dealer (Cleveland), May 14, 2009, Thursday

Copyright 2009 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

May 14, 2009, Thursday
Final Edition; All Editions

HEADLINE: El Barrio program links job hunters, employers

BYLINE: Olivera Perkins, Plain Dealer Reporter

BODY:
Aja Jones-Mitchell paired a suit jacket with dress pants to convey the right message for a job interview: corporate, but not stodgy. She mentally flipped through the research she had done on the company. The questioner pointed the camera at her to signal the start of the mock interview, and the candidate snapped into "hire me" mode.

Sounds like an exercise at the college job-placement office.

But it's not.

Jones-Mitchell, who was laid off several months ago as a clerk at a dollar store, hopes to land an entry-level job at a customer call center. She is a participant in the El Barrio/West Side Ecumenical Ministries Workforce Development program, where this kind of extensive interview coaching is required.

During her six-week program, Jones-Mitchell learned how to write a resume, sharpened job-search skills in one-on-one sessions with a counselor and attended classes where she learned about the interpersonal dynamics of team building and other "soft skills" that staff said would help her get and keep a job.

"Job search has totally changed," said Ingrid Angel, El Barrio's director. "It has brought the bar up even for entry level."

Instead of employers advertising job openings and then blindly choosing an applicant, companies now are increas-ingly relying on groups such as El Barrio, based in Cleveland's Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood, to pre-screen potential hires.

More than 65 percent of the approximately 140 2007 and '08 graduates of El Barrio's four-week customer-service session and the nearly 90 graduates of the three-week pre-construction program, which focuses on asbestos abatement, got jobs, Angel said. Even in this year's deep recession, 76 graduates of the program found jobs from January through April, 37 in March. At that time, Ohio's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 9.7 percent and Cleveland's nonadjusted rate was 10.6 percent.

The average wage for the customer-service graduates who found jobs since '07 was $9 an hour, Angel said. The pre-construction grads had average starting wages of $12 an hour.

Many of the people who got jobs fall into the hard-to-place category: older laid-off workers, younger workers with little experience and workers with inconsistent job histories often because of issues such as child care and transporta-tion.

Bill Rodrigues, who is in human resources at the Home Depot, said the company routinely hires from the program. Employees get to know participants in El Barrio classes taught by Home Depot staff and interact with others on field trips to local stores.

"We get to build a relationship with their clients," he said. "We get a preview of them - their work ethic and their commitment."

Such tracking of potential candidates is a tactic more commonly associated with hiring professionals. Several com-panies interviewed for this story said the same standards are increasingly applying to lower classifications.

LaToya Smith, an assistant vice president at Fifth Third Bank, who teaches an El Barrio class, said recruiters turn to community-based groups because they offer an efficient way of finding qualified candidates.

"We're doing more with less," she said. "If I get a chance to pre-screen someone or the organization pre-screens them, that saves me a lot of time.

"I will go to community organizations and say, 'I need someone with this skill set. If you have someone, send them to me,' " Smith said.

El Barrio's pre-screening is extensive, said Marcia Moreno, manager of business development.

"Companies like the fact that we do random drug testing and do background checks," she said.

Moreno focuses not just on current job openings when she talks to companies, but on encouraging them to form re-lationships with the program. Having employers teach classes is one way.

Tyrone Price, a human resources manager at Time Warner Cable, said the interaction between employer and par-ticipants is invaluable for both.

"As an employer, I am able to go in and explain our standards," he said. "I am able to coach and teach them about Time Warner - not only about the job, but the culture."

Employers are happy about the rigorous job-search process increasingly being required of entry-level applicants. But is it fair to expect the same thing from them that companies expect of professionals?

While this places "a new burden to upskill" on these job candidates, they may fare better with this approach than with the trend toward online applications, said John Hausknecht, assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University.

"Even though we like to move in this technology-based way of hiring, the personal piece is still critical," he said.

Jones-Mitchell, 25, doesn't seem to mind the rigor because it is making her more competitive. She spent four months looking for a job before enrolling.

Even participants, such as Edgar Serrano, 49, with extensive work histories believe the program gives them a com-petitive edge.

"I wish I could have done this years ago," said Serrano, who was laid off a year ago as a call-center supervisor and hopes to get an asbestos-removal job.

Angel said graduates are competitive because of El Barrio's case-management services, which they can get for 180 days after being hired. With this support, participants tackle obstacles that have prevented them from landing or keeping jobs in the past. This includes everything from help with child-care services to getting felonies expunged.

Even coursework focuses on participants addressing barriers. In a class taught by Rosa Beltre, El Barrio's director of the customer-service program, they talk about working in groups, giving and receiving constructive feedback and discussing what their personality-type tests reveal about them.

She said the goal is to get participants to be introspective about their work histories and to sharpen coping skills.

"When you actually analyze why did you leave your last job, it can't be 'because someone was getting on my nerves,' " Beltre said.

The day after Beltre conducted and taped Jones-Mitchell's interview, the future job applicant was busy reviewing her feedback: Be more confident. Sit up straight. Speak more slowly. Jones-Mitchell plans to rehearse frequently so that she can nail the next mock interview.

She doesn't mind putting in the effort. She is confident it will get her a job.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: operkins@plaind.com, 216-999-4868
BOX
El Barrio
For information about El Barrio's free job-training and placement programs, call 216-651-2037.
Participants must complete a two-week job-readiness session before entering the four-week customer-service pro-gram or the three-week pre-construction program.

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