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One-stop career centers: all in one place and everyplace - job hunting resources

Occupational Outlook Quarterly - September 22, 1997

Findings jobs and training will never be the same again. Here's how you can win your place in the work force of the future.

Welcome to America's newest megamalls, where you do the selling. In this marketplace, you don't sell clothes or pots and pans or even CD players. Here, you sell your own skills (and knowledge) to an employer. You invest wisely in education, study the labor market, sell to the highest bidder, and profit from your own labor. In America's new labor exchanges, you don't just find a job. You choose your working destiny.

One-stop career centers, the new malls of American labor, offer customers (students and workers) the resources needed to succeed in the workplace of the 21st century. Stop by and consider all available information on employment and training. Seek aid, including counseling, from helpful staff. Use computers and the most modern telecommunications. If you're too busy to stop by, visit via cyberspace and obtain many services that way.

These one-stops help workers find jobs and help employers find qualified employees. They broker the labor exchange. But they do a lot more, and they help everyone: students, college graduates, downsized professionals, career changers, people moving from welfare to work, veterans, and workers with disabilities. Anyone can apply for unemployment benefits, register for the State job service, obtain free job search assistance of countless kinds, find out about job training programs, learn about special programs for veterans and others, and more. Anyone in need of training or employment is welcome.

The one-stop idea seems simple: Put all employment and training services in one place to make them easy to use. Explore further, however, and the one-stop concept reveals itself as a complex system. The first section of this article discusses major aspects of one-stops as a system. The next section shows, on a personal level, how customers in varying life circumstances use one-stop career centers. Five fictional stories portray:

* A high school student exploring interests and career pathways,

* Two college students job hunting before graduation,

* A married couple seeking better paying, higher skill jobs,

* A single parent moving from welfare to work, and

* A downsized professional rebuilding a career.

A final section lists contacts for more information about currently operating centers.

This article does not explore the many services one-stops provide to employers. Here, the subject is the American worker, both present and future.

The Big Picture

One-stop career centers are already being implemented in 33 States, according to the Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. When fully up and running, the one-stops in these States will serve about 80 percent of the Nation's civilian labor force; the remaining States will soon join. The Employment and Training Administration makes grants to help one-stops get started, but States and localities create centers that vary according to local needs. One-stops are local inventions with national promise.

Consider some of the many reasons why one-stop career centers will change the way Americans train for and find work. As noted earlier, one-stops make many training and employment services available all in one place. The places where one-stops exist belong to both physical and virtual reality. These centers balance automation with personal service and destroy red tape at every turn. They also help the average worker adjust to the labor market by allowing better access to labor market information than ever before.

All in One Place

One-stop career centers blend together key programs, resources, and services. Typically, a center integrates programs such as unemployment insurance, the State job service, public assistance, and training programs (for example, those allied under the Job Training Partnership Act).

Centers also have resource rooms in one form or another. In them, customers find local, State, and national job vacancy listings in both electronic form and on paper--and sometimes microfiche. Customers may use computers equipped with word processing software and career information delivery systems (CIDS). This allows for activities ranging from writing resumes to exploring careers to researching sources of training and education. Customers might also find out how past completers of training and educational programs fared in the work force. Career libraries offer books and videos on various employment topics. In pursuit of work, customers enjoy free use of telephones, fax machines, photocopiers, and the Internet. Some centers have video conferencing facilities, allowing for long-distance job interviews.

One-stop staff provide individual career assessment and counseling. They offer training in job search skills as well. The training may address resume preparation, applications, interviewing, networking, and phone techniques, among other things. Staff also facilitate job clubs or networking groups.

And Everyplace

Melding one-stop centers with telecommunications wizardry stretches our everyday notion of place. Some communities build centers from the ground up, but others build from what is already there. Suppose a locality has its unemployment insurance office and its job training headquarters set up on opposite sides of town. It saves money to link such sites by computer network instead of putting up a new building to combine functions. Electronic links between facilities allow customers at one site to do business at another, as if they really were at the distant site.

In most cases, one-stops find it impractical to squeeze everything under one roof. An employment counselor, for example, normally refers customers with substance abuse problems that impair their ability to work to outside human services agencies. In rural areas, one-stop satellite offices staffed by only one or two people may offer less than the full range of services. Still, a mobile staff and the electronic transfer of information may fill much of the gap.

The Internet, television, and telephone warp one-stop space most of all. Centers have their own websites to provide information, and anyone with Internet access can search the State job bank remotely. In shopping malls and other public places, computerized kiosks beam customers in to the one-stop environment virtually, via the Internet.

Some one-stops also use public access or college television stations to broadcast training programs, scroll job listings onscreen, or announce events scheduled at the centers. In many States, followup contacts regarding unemployment insurance occur by phone; in some areas, unemployed workers even file their initial claim for benefits by phone.

With a Human Face

One-stops temper their technology with human concern. Staff size, however, is always limited, so centers offer different levels of personal service according to the needs of the customer.

Typically, when customers walk in the front door, a staff member greets them and finds out what assistance they seek. If they are new to the center, either the greeter or another staff member may take them on a tour, explaining what the center offers. After being introduced to the resource room, customers often use it on their own. A staff member hovers nearby to answer questions or resolve minor computer glitches. Many one-stops also conduct group orientations, introducing customers to available training and employment programs. The majority of one-stop customers only need this type of attention from staff.

At a higher level of service, unemployed customers might spend time with a placement specialist who will help them look for another job in their field. At the highest level of service, customers receive individual counseling. They may meet with an assigned case manager repeatedly over an extended period.

Someone facing barriers to entering or reentering the work force may need extra aid. For example, a worker dislocated by a plant closing, a disabled veteran, an ax-offender, or anyone making a major career change might opt to work with a case manager. Or not. The customer always chooses. If a dislocated worker with few transferable skills wants to use the self-service aspects of the center with no further assistance, nothing prevents that.

The roles of staff in one-stops vary from one center to the next, but in every case, not all staff members work for the same employer. Because of the way one-stops combine programs, the staff may work for a variety of public and private entities, including nonprofit or for-profit organizations. Despite the mix of employers, however, one-stop staff coordinate their efforts. This frees customers from having to wrangle with multiple agencies, each with its own set forms to fill out. Customers need not care who employs the person helping them at a one-stop career center. Only the help itself matters.

And a Backbone

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