Jobs Waiting / Healthcare — Montefiore Health Systems has been growing fast in Westchester, and Roshelle Robertson, senior recruiter, wants to fill jobs with qualified candidates from the communities it serves. She is just the type of recruiter that the Jobs Waiting Program is designed to serve. And Robertson has found just the type of candidates she needs at Jobs Waiting boot camp graduations.

“Everybody was prepared,” said Robertson of the impressive group of candidates she met at the March graduation of the 6-week Jobs Waiting boot camp at the Crowne Plaza White Plains. “They knew how to articulate their ideas and knew how to present themselves.”

That’s the goal of the federally funded Jobs Waiting program—to prepare 500 long-term unemployed individuals for jobs in the Hudson Valley’s $15 billion healthcare sector. This fast-growing and innovative industry has a tremendous need for talented and skilled job seekers. Jobs Waiting, led by Westchester County in partnership with the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Development Board, and managed by the Westchester County Association, is meeting that demand by training job seekers who have struggled to find work, particularly those who lost their jobs in the Great Recession. The result is a win-win for both business and residents of the Hudson Valley.

What a difference a career coach can make
Robertson has attended several Jobs Training boot camp graduations. She said she finds job seekers who have the right attitude as well as the training. At that first graduation Robertson attended in March, she met Paul F. of Irvington, a former critical care nurse who had been looking for work for three years. In Paul, Robertson discovered a great candidate for a teaching position at Montefiore School of Nursing in Mount Vernon.

“Paul had a very good disposition and carriage,” she said. “He’s very commanding, but then there’s a softness about him.”

He also had a background that she found attractive. Paul had been a chef, a physical therapist, and then a nurse. Before the boot camp, he worried that the varied career history might make him seem unfocused. But his Jobs Waiting career coach encouraged him to see it as a benefit. He was shown how to write a modern resume that stresses skills over a chronology of the applicant’s jobs. When Paul is asked about his career path now, he’s ready.
“My answer now, after the boot camp, is, ‘They’re all human-service careers, and that’s what drives me, because I care about people,’” Paul said.

The confidence in which Paul presented his variety of skills caught Robertson’s attention. Even if Paul did not have teaching experience, Robertson was sure that he had what it takes to perform the job well. “He’s going to keep the students engaged,” she said. “And it’s very difficult to keep the students engaged.”

A ‘mental reboot’ for job seekers
Paul didn’t enter the six-week boot camp with the poise Robertson saw. The exhausting search for work can dishearten the unemployed, and undermine their efforts to secure positions. “It can be discouraging after many interviews when you may think you have a pretty good chance at finding the right job, then come up empty," Paul said. "At times I wondered if I was unknowingly projecting negative energy.”

By the time he finished the six-week program, however, he was much more positive. The course gives solid advice on how to prepare for a job search. But perhaps the biggest effect it has is to quickly restore and build up participants’ beliefs in their abilities.

“A lot of the experiences were group exercises, during which we were very honest with each other about our personal assets. Having your peers tell you that you’re articulate and intelligent was very healing. It built my confidence up to hear those words from a group of individuals I’d just met. The training was like a mental reboot.”

Employers involved in the Jobs Waiting Program say that the participants’ confidence, and their commitment to the program over the course of six weeks, are attractive qualities that can give Jobs Waiting graduates an edge in a job search.

“I’ve been impressed with whom I’ve met so far, and look forward to continued involvement with the program,” Robertson said. “We hope to meet many more Jobs Waiting candidates.”

Find out how Jobs Waiting can support your healthcare organization with qualified job candidates and support for employee training.

For more information, go to Jobs Waiting.