Photo: Pixabay

A Vernon program in putting youth to work.

The NexusBC Community Resource centre's new Training for Jobs program is being hailed a success.

In its third quarter, the program for 18-24 year olds living in the North Okanagan, is aimed at getting young people into the workforce.

While the focus of the program is to get youth working in long-term sustainable employment, it also offers a unique one-to-one job coaching service that teaches skills that will last a life time.

Offering continuous intake with no specific start and end dates, participants will meet with a job coach up to three times per week where they will have the opportunity to engage in a variety of employment-related workshops ranging from resumes and cover letters, informational interviewing, interview skills, motivational skills and job maintenance.

“While some participants will only need training in resume and cover letter writing, other participants will learn how to market themselves in today’s job market or what appropriate clothing for job interviews looks like,” said program manager Abby MacNeish. “With the labour market being an employee’s market, our employer liaison, Donna Anderson reaches out to employers to find out what their hiring needs are and we try to respond to those labour shortages by introducing potential new hires from our program. The program has funding for short term certificates that employers have identified as necessary to gain employment in their company.”

Former participant Alexandra Skrinnikoff said the program helped her find a career path that she wouldn’t have known without the program.

“I learned about the Training for Jobs program while attending the NexusBC Community Resource Job Fair in March. I didn’t have a lot of experience with resume and cover letter writing. I didn’t really know what employers were looking for in terms of skills and how I could make my experience stand out to them. My main setback was simply having no purpose and wasn’t aware of how my natural abilities could help me find a career I wanted to pursue,” said Skrinnikoff. “An array of career assessments really helped me examine what careers would suit my skills and interests. This allowed me to discover valuable self-management skills and learning styles that I realized I could benefit from in my everyday life.”

Skrinnikoff said the program showed her things she “didn’t even know existed as a young professional.”

NexusBC is sponsoring Skrinnikoff to take the Office Assistant Certificate program at Okanagan College.

“At the beginning of the year I felt like I had I had no direction towards my future. However, within a short few months with the Training for Jobs program, I found a career I will love to focus on and the total confidence knowing that I will do well in anything I desire,” she said.