Strategically Virtual: Effective Job Search Support in the Time of COVID
by Michele Martin
A year into the COVID-19 recession and crisis, the public workforce system has focused most of its attention on skills training and how to connect workers to short-term credentials in a virtual environment. There is a need for these services, of course, but a focus on skills training alone leaves vast swathes of the unemployed underserved and unsupported in getting back to work. Only a relatively small percentage of people will access skills training. A much larger number need help and guidance in finding new jobs, and those who do receive training will also need these supports.
As unemployed workers navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 recession, long-term unemployment, and ongoing social isolation, it is critical that the public workforce system, in collaboration with community organizations, begin to think differently about the supports and services it provides to people in job search. Transactional, short-term supports such as labor exchange, résumé reviews, and job search workshops, are not enough to support people through a long, arduous journey back to employment, especially in an environment where hiring is complicated and situations change quickly.
Strategically Virtual: Effective Job Search Support in the Time of COVID, a new brief from the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, lays out a three-tier model for providing more comprehensive support to job seekers based on best practices and real-world experiences in serving the unemployed. This model incorporates the latest findings on how chronic stress and trauma affect emotional regulation, task initiation, planning, and decision-making skills. It emphasizes the need for activities that facilitate physical and psychological safety, connections to peer support, and the development of healthy job search habits while helping people manage ongoing shifts in mood and motivation. Through a more comprehensive and thoughtful approach to supporting the job search, the workforce system can help mitigate the negative impacts of long-term unemployment and help people find and connect to better work.
In an upcoming brief, the Heldrich Center will outline how to implement this model in a virtual environment.
Michele Martin is Director of Technical Assistance at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.
In the Suddenly Virtual series, the Heldrich Center examined how the public workforce system had adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing case management, training, and job search services in an online environment. The Strategically Virtual series builds on this work, outlining how the public workforce system can use technology and community partnerships more effectively to expand services, address job seeker mental and emotional well-being, and ensure that a broader range of the public is able to access supports during a time of social distancing and massive job loss. The Strategically Virtual series is producing issue briefs, Medium blog posts, practical guides, and more. View all of the Strategically Virtual blog posts.
