We’re doing everything we can to connect Chicago jobseekers and employers, but we’re obviously not alone. Recently we connected with a relatively new agency that’s tackling unemployment head-on: Skills for Chicagoland’s Future.
A non-profit backed by the City of Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois—not to mention heavyweights like JPM Morgan Chase, the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation and the Joyce Foundation—Skills for Chicagoland’s Future describes itself as an “initiative designed to close the workforce skills gap and move the unemployed into open positions by directly responding to the hiring needs of employers.”
Jobseekers need meet only two criteria to sign up with Skills for Chicagoland’s Future: they need to live in Cook County, and they need to be unemployed. Sad to say, that’s a lot of people.
“We pre-screen 300-400 jobseeker applications a week,” says Bowen Hopper, Vice President of Business Partnerships. “Our goal is to get 2000 people back to work by the end of our first twelve months.”
Getting there often means training jobseekers for new careers. Hopper says, “What people learn at our community colleges doesn’t always match up with what employers say they need. We work with both sides to make sure jobseekers have the skill sets for corporate jobs.”
Since we target entry-level jobs, and Skills for Chicagoland’s Future focuses mostly on mid-level and higher professional jobs, we see the potential for a nicely complementary relationship.
“When we were first approached by Kauzu, we were extremely excited to hear about their hyper-local focus and how that would not only benefit our business clients, but also the jobseekers we work so hard to support. I truly feel our partnership with Kauzu will help Chicagoland residents and drive employment and economic growth throughout the area,” says Hopper.
If you’re looking for a job—or looking to fill one—we hope you’ve already signed up with Kauzu.Jobs or Kauzu.Biz. But you should definitely check out Skills for Chicagoland’s Future. We’re glad they’re on our side.
