New Learning Curve (very long)

Since last February Neal and I have been service missionaries at the Washington Seattle Employment Resource Services office, known as the ERS or ERC most of the time. (It used to be Employment Services but that changed. I think some folks thought that if they came in and told us what they wanted, we'd spend our days looking for a good job for them. Not so. Our job is to help them help themselves. But that's another story.) We've had lots of great experiences working with clients and usually we are involved with data - entering it in the computer, helping clients print resumes and job leads, sending email notifications to bishops, posting progress reports and handling various details in client files. We've really enjoyed it, especially when I can help someone who speaks limited English, or when Neal is able to help someone connect with contract agencies.

A lot of what we do is about to change drastically.

The Church is rolling out a brand new LDS jobs website in January. The old website has been difficult to manipulate and of the 10,000 jobs (US and Canada) posted on it, about 5000 of them were 'stale' - meaning out of date and just not deleted. Plus the jobs were entered manually with typos and errors by someone like me in an Employment office and may or may not have been listed under the best category for searching. Example - diesel mechanic - should I put it under Maintenance or Automotive or Trucking, and what word will the candidate use to search for that job? Most people look at the website a time or two, then decide that it won't help them in a job search. I don't blame them.

The new website won't go live until January but it already has 38,000 current jobs posted! That's much better than 5000! As I understand it, the new website will use a webcrawler that will daily check the websites of companies that the church has made agreements with and will automatically post links to the jobs. Instead of limited local jobs, it has BIG companies like Honeywell, Boeing, Microsoft, medical groups and on and on.

The big change for clients is that they will enter their own data, instead of us trying to read their handwriting and posting it in local databases. After we've enter the information from their application, then we ask for their resume which Neal then scans and adds to the online application. All of that is dependent on the accuracy of the missionary or volunteer's ability to read what they wrote and enter it in a timely fashion. With resumes, all kinds of things happen - if they use colored paper or an unusual font or underlining, the scanner might scramble things and it becomes something less than professional. There are similar problems entering jobs into the program - it's a judgement call on our part to determine which categories to place specific jobs. Plus there is a lot of duplication of effort - a handwritten application form is entered into the system, progress notes are written on the paper copy, then entered into the system, etc etc. It all takes time.

The new website puts the responsibility back on the individual - personal accountability. Using their membership number and confirmation date they enter their own information including their resume, and access to it is limited (security is good). Then when an employer is seeking employees, they can pull up names and skill sets of qualified clients - but not their personal data. I'm not sure what happens at that point because I haven't seen the training module for interviews and hiring but I think that companies also have access to email addresses to contact prospective applicants. Also, clients can apply online for jobs they like....NOT just in their local area but anywhere in the US from their home computer.

So, a college student planning to go home for the summer could get a jump start on the job search by posting his or her information while still at school, but indicating availability and work experience. A company in the hometown could pull up the application and begin the interview process before the student ever finishes finals.

Responsibilities will increase for the ward employment specialists who (ideally) will get referrals from the bishop and help the ward member who needs assistance in posting his application and resume. Then the job at the ERS will be to train specialists and help clients improve/enhance their presentation. But one of the best features is that they cannot post their application until 75% of the information is entered.....so no more sketchy applications with partial information. I hate the ones that say "any good-paying job" and don't tell us what experience or training they have. Pick a category and enter some information or the system won't let you post your application!

The advantage to companies in allowing us to access their websites with a webcrawler is that there is no cost to the employer or to the employee. Free. That beats the fees monster.com or other agencies charge companies for using their services. We aren't asking to be exclusive, only that they let us be a part of their hiring process....and are positive that within a few years our services will be much more effective and desirable for those businesses.

Nearly all of our office paperwork will go away, and all the time-consuming reports will be automatically generated by the computer. Think of Sunday School rolls - those dreadfully inaccurate paper trails that are about 50% accurate because Charlie at the end of the row took his kid out and didn't pass the roll on to someone else. If it were the same type of system as this new website, the member would click a link when he entered the classroom and it would automatically be reported in SLC - so no more MPR reports to be compiled and submitted.

Or - remember the old ward and stake websites we used to have before the church said they were taking over? Lds.org is an incredible improvement in so many ways over the first websites prepared locally which were dependent on the skill (and good taste) of the local website developer. Now there is consistency and it's useful throughout the world. I believe the same thing will happen with this new improved LDS jobs website.

Everyone in the church should be on this new website - either as an active or passive employee (looking or not looking), as a type of personal emergency preparedness. Then they would be ready when/if they need a new job. (If you are prepared ye shall not fear.) Plus the more people who are listed on the website, the more attractive it will be for employers ("You have a database of 500,000?"), and the more employers they can attract, which would in turn help our brothers and sisters who are seeking employment. Plus LDS employers should use it as well to post any job openings they might have.

The other difference is that there will be a huge increase in posted jobs for people with college degrees, whereas the previous website frequently had openings only for tech trained or unskilled workers, so we'll be able to do more for folks with professional backgrounds, and that has been a big gap in service we provided.

The other part of the website is that we can add links in six categories - such as effective local job search engines (such as state employment or indeed.com), or sources for education funding, etc.

On our current website this month we show 6 jobs available locally. The new website shows several hundred open jobs around Renton! Plus now we can check jobs in other areas, or people in other areas can access clients anywhere. Example - I posted a job the other day (practice, but it was a real job) for a person with travel agency experience to work for the Nauvoo Inn. They wanted someone living in the Rockies or further west but familiar with Nauvoo area who would work from home. Their job would be to market to tour groups to stay at the inn during their visit to Nauvoo. Without this new system, how would we have known about a job posted from Nauvoo? I messed up the job posting and ended up being an employee of Nauvoo Inn - I had to be be fired and reassigned as a missionary before it was corrected. The next week a missionary in a branch office north of us was clicking on links during his training and called to tell me that I had been reassigned to British Columbia; I had to be transferred back to the Renton office. Thankfully all the glitches in the beta program are being corrected quickly. The church is directing a lot of resources towards making this an effective viable program in order to help us become more self-reliant.

Nonmembers can still be involved a little. They can post their application/resume on the website, but to access further services (career workshops, interview practice etc) they will need ecclesiastic approval, so ERS will return to its former procedure where anyone coming to the office needs a bishop's form. That's fair. But only between 20-30% nonmembers use the centers anyway so it won't be an issue. Because of our location we have a few homeless folks who wander in to check their email and use the phones but I'm sure that will still occur.

I like that it includes the bishops so much more effectively than previously when all they received was a letter or email informing them that Brother or Sister X from their ward had come to the office. Now bishops will know when members are in need of work and will have a format in place for providing real help. Plus folks receive church assistance will be accountable for updating their profiles and actually seeking work instead of saying, "I can't find anything" when all they've done is a little searching of various commercial links. It's a great step forward.

Probably more than you wanted to know but this is exciting to me - especially after listening to someone from SLC this week who was very informative and enthusiastic. His goal is 100,000 jobs when we go live on January 1st. The church does a count update every Monday morning and last Friday the website had 26,000 jobs. Over the weekend that number grew to 38,000! All of this is under the direction of the Presiding Bishop's office, by the way.

So I'm excited for the changes and the improvements and the opportunities which are coming.