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New 'Work Certified Academy' helping job-seekers prepare for new positions
mbradwell@observer-reporter.com
When Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel’s Allenport mill closed for good in August, Frank Chacko said goodbye to the place that had employed him for four decades.
Chacko, 59, of Washington, who had worked as a millwright and planner-expediter, was worried. He had joined the Mon Valley plant in 1968 after completing two years of college, and since then, had never looked for a job.
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“I was out there in water that was up to my nose,” Chacko said last week in recalling his sudden loss of a lifetime of employment. “I had never looked for a job in 40 years.”
Chacko, who landed on his feet in November with a new job in the steel industry, credited a new “work readiness” program introduced in Washington County this fall by the Washington Greene County Job Training Agency.
The “Work Certified Academy,” a two-week program which the agency operates out of the LandAmerica Center in Washington and in Donora, is open to any Washington County resident who has recently lost a job or wants to re-enter the work force after a long hiatus.
The academy is an extension of a longer four-week Work Certified program that the agency began providing two years ago for people moving from welfare to work in Washington and Greene counties.
Linda Bell, vice president of WGCJTA, said the shorter program focuses on helping participants write résumés, memos and brush up on or learn new computer skills such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint presentations. The program is being made possible by a $3.5 million allocation from Washington County’s local share of slots revenues returned to it by The Meadows Racetrack & Casino.
She explained that the course, designed by a Florida nonprofit and used in other states, is also offered at CareerLink offices in Donora. It is available only to Washington County residents because it is funded by money generated by the local share of the county’s slots revenue allocation.
One of the most critical aspects of the program, according to Bell and academy coordinator Linda Kopcha, is the section that has participants practice interview skills with outside interviewers using questions provided by area businesses.
“We try to make it as much as an actual workplace experience as we can,” Kopcha said. The other factor that makes the classroom work valuable is that each participant takes a computerized test at the end of the two weeks. When they pass, they receive a certificate.
Chacko said the best part of the interviewing class was that it helped him get past the trepidation he had about looking for a job for the first time.
“You realize that everybody else has the same fear that you do,” he said. He also credited Ron Hart at CareerLink for helping him write a résumé that described his job skills.
During an interviewing skills class last week, lead trainer Bridgett Nobili worked with about 15 students in getting them to talk about both their strengths and weaknesses as an employee.
While it was clear that many in the room had been in the work force for many years and that some had worked their way up from entry-level jobs to supervisory positions, it had been awhile since they were asked to be forthcoming about their strengths and weaknesses.
Todd Schmidt said he knows he has leadership skills. In his last job, he said, he had to learn nine different functions over the last two years, and was a crew leader. His weakness?
“I like to have everything perfect in my job,” Schmidt said. “I have to learn to compromise and (understand) that this isn’t a perfect world.”
Nobili complimented Schmidt for stating his shortcoming in the way that he did, noting that interviewers often ask the question realizing that no employee is perfect.
Chacko learned through job searches at CareerLink that Universal Stainless & Alloy Products Inc. of Bridgeville was seeking a mechanical coordinator to perform recordkeeping for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reporting and to start the ordering process for items needed in the mill’s mechanical department. He had two interviews and was offered the position, which he began Nov. 17.
He said the new job is very similar to what he was doing in his final years at Allenport.
Myra Bernhart, WGCTA’s corporate manager, said the academy accepts people from 18 years old through the 70s. Kopcha said the oldest graduate was a 77-year-old woman who received a part-time job in a physician’s office. Thirty-five people have completed the course since it began in September.
Competencies are taught in computers, pre-employment preparation, customer service, business writing, work maturity and employability and general business knowledge.
Bernhart added that the new program is also being marketed to local employers who may want to send new hires as a way of preparing them for their jobs. She said The Meadows Racetrack & Casino will begin sending the new employees it plans to hire for its permanent casino that will open in the spring. Some local banks also are preparing to send new employees to the program, which also places an emphasis on providing good customer service.
Chacko said he thinks the program would be a good starting point for all first-time job seekers.
“I think all high school seniors should take this course,” he said. “It would do everybody a world of good.”
For more information on WGCJTA’s “Work Certified Academy,” contact program coordinator Linda Kopcha at 724-225-2551.
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