Posted on 03/03/2008 8:34:49 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Robert Beasley says he is “training young adults to be professional” — and he approaches his job with all the enthusiasm of an evangelist.
Beasley, 48, is a career specialist with Arbor Education and Training located at the Greenwood WIN Job Center. The program teaches young adults how to act during an interview, complete a job application, assemble a resume and cover letter and perform other related tasks.
“Basically, we’re giving them the skills to find a job, to get a job and to keep that job,” said Beasley, a Greenwood native and Jackson State University graduate.
Arbor Education and Training is a contract agency with the South Delta Workforce Investment Area, a federally funded work force initiative.
Arbor’s program, known as “Project CEO,” which is aimed at adults ages 18 to 21 who have a high school diploma or GED certificate, is scheduled to begin March 7.
It will involve 50 hours of classroom instruction at the WIN Center over three weeks. That’s followed by a series of mock job interviews.
The agency has similar programs operating in Batesville and Tunica.
For some reason, interview skills aren’t taught in high school or college, he said.
“When I went to college, I was not taught how to interview, how to respond. The eye contact, the greeting. I learned that the hard way,” Beasley said.
“These young people will have an edge we didn’t have. They’ll be prepared, when they leave this program, to conduct themselves in a professional manner when they enter the building,” he said.
Each applicant must bring:
A copy of their birth certificate.
A Social Security card.
Proof of income, such as a Supplemental Security Income statement, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families statement or employment record.
Proof of residency, such as a valid driver’s license.
Men must also provide proof that they have registered for the Selective Service.
Beasley said the program offers cash incentives.
Each participant is paid $2 per hour for completing the 50 hours of classroom instruction.
If a participant increases his or her grade level, based upon a basic standardized education test administered several times during the program, he or she receives $25 for each grade level increase.
For example, if a participant had an eighth-grade rating at the beginning of the three-week program and increased his rating to that of a 10th-grader, he would receive $50.
In addition, participants who are punctual and have perfect attendance will receive a $50 bonus, Beasley said.
Women with children also receive a bonus of $10 a week for their first child and $5 for each additional child while in the program.
The effort will extend beyond the classroom, he said. If a participant gets a job at a qualified industry, the program will pay their wages at $5.85 per hour for three weeks at 30 hours a week.
For participants who want to go to a community college, Arbor can pay their first semester’s tuition, he said.
Beasley said the program can make a difference in the lives of young people in the Delta and he’s looking for his first class of recruits.
“I’m recruiting from the adult Drug Court, the WIN Job Center, community colleges, neighborhoods and churches, wherever I see them,” he said.
To find out more about Arbor Education & Training’s Project CEO, call Robert Beasley at the WIN Job Center, 453-7141.
...the military has a number of programs that do this without all of the attendant nonsense.
I settle for a program that trains them to “think”.
I agree with you. I have never run a program but I have interviewed and hired many young people over the years.
As the Duke said during the movie “McLintok!”. “I don’t give jobs. I hire men”.
Isn’t this what High School is supposed to do? Not to fill out applications but to think for yourself. Kids can’t even read and write today.
Ideally, it should begin at infancy and ideally in an intact home.
“Women with children also receive a bonus of $10 a week for their first child and $5 for each additional child while in the program. “
So we want to train women to believe that they will be hired, paid and promoted on the basis of how many sprogs they produce? Isn’t that, like, training them for welfare?
P.S. If they produce another kid during the training do they get a bonus? And will you give them extra money if they can pick the father out of a line-up? Good grief on skates.
He forgot the most important things.
Be properly dressed (no droopy pants, sideways baseball caps, soiled t-shirts with obscene messages on them, or flip-flops).
No visible piercings or tattoos.
Hair colours limited to those nature has provided; no green, blue, purple, pink or striped hair; also no Mohawks, messages shaved into their heads or spikes.
We had a girl come to interview for a job at a law firm where I was working, who was wearing a tiny tank top that exposed the top half of a tattoo and a substantial expanse of boobie. She also wore a mini-skirt, knee boots with four inch spike heels, and what Granny would have called “paint.” She spoke with what some of us older people thought was a speech impediment, but more knowledgeable people informed us that she had a pierced tongue and had taken the spike out for the interview. She made the lawyers’ day but did not get the job.
I was in the Box Project many years ago and had a family living near Greenwood in the Delta area, Itta Bena. I often wonder what happened to them. It was a wonderful blessing to be able to send monthly boxes to them, especially at Christmas.
Here’s the problem with this. Jackson State has developed a huge school for “Department of Public Service”, ie, a Department of Government Jobs. If J-State had done as much work developing a Department of Business and Industry, or Arts and Sciences, they might be able to crank out better than functionally illiterate graduates.
I don't plan to give them anything save what is extracted from me in the form of taxes and I resent Hell out of that.
The Public School Lobby's talking points are that homeschoolers don't have social skills!
True, attitude is the key, but having a leg up on your peers is a good thing, too. Many of us look back from a time span of 35 years or so since we applied for our first jobs, and think it shouldn’t be so hard to get a job. Times have changed, and the situation is tough for folks in poor areas, like Greenwood, MS, who don’t have a lot of models among friends and family about how to get and keep a job, in order to work themselves up into something better. It’s been tough for years, so it’s great that there is a mechanism by which those to want to take advantage of a way to get themselves ahead can do so, with fewer roadblocks.
“For example, if a participant had an eighth-grade rating at the beginning of the three-week program and increased his rating to that of a 10th-grader, he would receive $50.”
So if they sandbag the initial test they can earn some easy cash...
The costs of this program should be deducted from the salaries of teachers and administrators at the local schools, who obviously aren’t doing their jobs at all.
Joseph Mencia has a course to help these unemployed get one of the yobs 25 million illegals seem to have no problem finding...yobs “Americans won’t do”
It sounds like she knows what it takes to get a job, she just shouldn't have applied at a place that discriminates against whores.
LOL. If you don't have manners and know how to behave in an interview by the time you reach high school you're destined to have employment difficulties.
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