If I Build It, Will They Come?
For a journalist who has traditionally gained access to immigrant communities through gatekeepers — community leaders, nonprofits, lawyers organizations or other intermediaries— producing a short-term project to serve and interact directly with newcomers is a different experience.
That’s what The JobUp is. The series of dual-track workshops that form the backbone of my summer independent study at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where I’m pursuing a master’s in social journalism. What I learned from the process may interest to other engaged reporters.
I designed the program to deliver both classes in English as a second language and guidance in career integration to newcomers who are eductaed abroad but can’t find good jobs.
The U.S. has a structural problem of undeutilizing this population’s skills, a phenomenon called immigrant brain-waste or malemployment. Since it’s also an underreported subject, there’s a need to make this type of information easy to find.
Reaching this community, however, is complicated. The nearly 2 million malemployed newcomers to the U.S. are scattered throughout the country’s spectrum of immigrant groups, mother tongues and professions, not to mention that they often feel self-conscious about publicizing their condition. Long working hours in low-paying survival jobs are also common, leaving them little free time to either look or retrain for better ones. That’s a big challenge for The JobUp, which I’m spearheading under a tight recruitment deadline. If I build it, will they come?
This summer, I collaborated with the Turkish Cultural Center in Brooklyn. I have been cultivating a rapport with the organization and its leaders have referred people to my program. However, I’m experimenting with wider recruitment for the fall, when I won’t be able to travel to Brooklyn.
Thus, I came up with an outreach plan that combines both my well-honed ability to engage people and organizations individually with the less-practiced one of reaching out to them on social media. Here are some of the insights I gathered.
Three generations of flyers
I needed to create a flyer to promote The JobUp: a colorful one-sheeter to disseminate either digitally or in hard-copy to the people and organizations I contacted for recruitment help. As it turns out, there were nuances to be learned about designing an effective flyer. The changes spun three versions!
First, I realized that I had to embed the registration link on the page and not make the design so color-intensive that it discourages people from printing it. Ink cartridges are expensive! That said, an embedded link is useless on a printed page. So, I shortened the link on Bitly.com and typed it on the flyer, then embedded it. I owe that trick to Kirsti Itameri, the school’s digital coach.
I also created a Twitter account, @TheJobUpUSA, to engage with people and organizations on social media to promote the project, which will soon be my focus.
Whether the strategy will attract enough registrants within the short time I have available remains to be seen. The professional integration of immigrants continues to be a field in which personalized, discreet and one-on-one connections are the game-changer.
Don’t Neglect The Gatekeepers
That’s why intermediaries and gatekeepers remain so important. The latter enjoy the respect of their fellow nationals and work with journalists like me to help us gain access. In my current work in Brooklyn, I communicate regularly with my collaborators, telling them what works and what doesn’t.
I share updates with my contacts at the Turkish Cultural Center after each class to let them know how it went, for example, or what I may need at the next workshop. We also collaborated to invite CUNY Citizenship Now to give a Know-Your-Rights presentation. The event was very successful, we held on August 1.
The next step will be to ask the Turkish Cultural Center to encourage eligible members to commute out of Brooklyn and join The JobUp in Manhattan this fall. Will those malemployed immigrants be ready to take the leap?