For our first challenge of the 2022-2023 program year, we were excited to partner with Detroit at Work, the City of Detroit workforce development agency, powered by Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, a Michigan Works! Agency. Five teams of Fellows worked collaboratively with Detroit at Work (DaW) and the Community Health Corps (CHC) staff as well as community stakeholders to deliver this project – learn more from the perspective of each team!
Career search and navigation is something that we all have experience doing. From our first job to our most current job, we are all looking for a place where we feel like our skills and passions align, a place where we get to go to work and love what we do. We all also know the fear and frustration of not being qualified enough, not knowing the next steps, not knowing where to start, or not wanting to ask for help and resources along the way. However, throughout this process, we have learned so much about how Detroit at Work is making an effort to completely transform the job search process. Our stakeholders all echoed a sentiment of care for Detroiters and their needs in developing the workforce. That is something that has continuously grounded us while drafting recommendations for their new DaW online job search portal. Olivia Vaden said it best, “We need to meet people where they are at.”
Our team, Eboni Thomas, Donald Stuckey ll, Haley Beverlin, Talia Greenberg, and Hannah Rickard brainstorming ideas for the new portal during the ideation phase.
This process has opened our eyes to how important a community can be, and how important it is to transfer these in-person interactions that Detroit at Work has in career centers to an online space. Our main goals throughout this process were to create a portal that is accessible, resourceful, and made specifically for Detroit. We were able to identify ways to enhance Detroit at Work’s new portal, providing a report of recommendations that we believe capture the goals that we heard from our stakeholders. Stakeholders wanted to see a platform that encouraged independent engagement, made Detroiters feel like they were a part of a community, and set users up for greater opportunities, not only finding a new job, but finding a job that they love. Long-term success was critical, and we are honored to have gone through this process building relationships with our stakeholders along the way.
Written by Fellow Team: Eboni Thomas, Donald Stuckey II, Hannah Rickard, Haley Beverlin and Talia Greenberg
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