Volunteer Opportunity: Career Mentor

Position Summary:

When a client arrives, one of their key objectives is to become financially stable and independent as soon as possible. The most important part of achieving that is securing employment. Many times, our clients could use assistance in creating, updating, revising, and or translating their resumes. At the end of your session, the client should walk away with a resume and an idea of how to communicate their work experience effectively and/or a completed online job application.

 

Key Responsibilities:

Here’s what you can expect to do in your three meetings with your client:

1. Ask the client about their work experience and their current resume if they have one.
2. Identify current job needs and a field they want to go into.
3. Identify transferable skills and experiences of the client that will help them get into the field they want.
4. Draft a clear resume with them. If they already have a resume, update it with them and translate it to English.
5. Email them a copy and print a copy for them to take home.
6. Practice some interview skills with them using the given guidelines if the job they want requires one.
7. If needed, search for jobs and companies near the client’s home and/or in the line of work they’re interested in that have online applications.
8. Fill out the online application and corresponding paperwork with the client. It’s likely you’ll need to translate to the client’s language along the way.
9. Go over any next steps they need to prepare for after completing the application. Example: read the confirmation email from the application and make a list of what the client needs to bring to the office on their first day of work.

 

Qualifications:

If you have a background in HR, employment services, or something similar, that is great, but not required. While knowing another language is not required, most of our clients at this event speak another language. If you speak any language other than English, please let us know so we can try to match you with a client who speaks that language. We recommend using Google Translate or Tarjimly for translation assistance and practicing with an English speaker would be beneficial for our clients.

 

Time Commitment: Volunteers commit to meeting with a client for one hour per week, for at least 3 weeks.

 

Benefits to Volunteer:

1. Help a client with a crucial step towards self-sufficiency
2. Gain cross-cultural skills and experience
3. Begin mutually transformative friendships with refugees

 

Onboarding and Training:

1. General short term/long term volunteer onboarding process, including an application, online workshop, live orientation, background check, reference check
2. There is no formal training for this opportunity, as we assume you already have a stellar resume and have applied for jobs online before! The client’s caseworker can show you how to use Language Line (our interpretation service) if needed.

 

Management:

Career Mentors will be collaboratively managed. Church and Community Engagement (CCE) will recruit and onboard Career Mentors. When caseworkers from any department express a client’s need for a Career Mentor, a Volunteer Coordinator will ask Career Mentors if anyone can meet with the client or assign a new Career Mentor to their service line. The Volunteer Coordinator will give the volunteer’s information to the caseworker, and they will coordinate a time to meet with the client. CCE will do quarterly check-ins with volunteers who have met with clients to receive feedback about their experience. CCE will do quarterly check-ins to communicate the status and need for onboarding new volunteers and communicate feedback from current Career Mentors.

 

Feedback Loop:

After each Career Mentor’s first and second client meetings, CCE will ask the volunteer and the client’s caseworker for feedback. CCE will do quarterly check-ins with volunteers who have met with clients to receive feedback about their experience. CCE will do quarterly check-ins to communicate the status and need for onboarding new volunteers and communicate feedback from current Career Mentors. Caseworkers will recommend to CCE whether a volunteer should be recommended for another Career Mentor Opportunity, or if the placement was not a good fit.