Dislocated Workers program: a total bust so far

I've been a client in the program ongoing 7 months now. My first employment guidance counselor was a total mismatch for my personality.

Services for eligible people can include:

• Career planning and counseling
• Job search assistance
• Connections to employers hiring now
• Counselor-approved training
• Other support services

The problem with county programs is the lack of follow-up from the government employees. Literally, the first thing I told the employment counselor was that I needed to be connected to a certification program so that I could update my skills with a new career path due to my age and job history.

The benefit of a certification program is that the employment counselors in that program have partnerships with employers who teach the classes in the certification program, so job placement is 100%.

But, for 7 months, this first employment guidance counselor undermined and jeopardized my well-being by not checking in with me, not reviewing my resume, connecting me to certification programs, or to employers who are hiring now during the pandemic. That's a serious amount of time wasted due to her apathy based on our personality conflict.

I am not going to apologize for advocating strongly for myself, when no one else will. The second employment counselor, turns out, is just as apathetic. He actually hasn't reviewed my resume or done any of the bullet points above. And, when I reported him to his supervisor he emailed me a nasty email -- which I just forwarded to his supervisor.

I called a certification program that I found on my own, since time is of the essence. The employment counselor of that program shared his observations about county workers in general with me when we discussed my frustrations. He said he used to work in that same county program and had the same experience with his colleagues who just refused to help out clients like me who were laid off or terminated from their jobs, with job placement, training, and employer resources.

He assured me that the certification program he supervises has 100% job placement. That could all be a sales-marketing ploy on his program's behalf, b/c their nonprofit funding is tied to enrollment numbers. They don't get funding for their certification programs, if they have low student enrollment.

I am going to do the certification anyway. It's 6 weeks, no tuition and unpaid training. But the online classes are taught by active employers who are volunteering their time online, and who could potentially be the quickest way for me to network for a full-time job. Otherwise, its just 6 weeks of sending resumes online without confirmation that I"ll even get a job interview.

I feel as if being a client in a dislocated works program is the bottom of the barrel. But 7 months ago when I had to attend some in-person mandatory sessions for it, I met other highly educated people with 20-30 year careers who were laid off or terminated.

So, I know there are other people in my same situation. And this damn pandemic doesn't help employment opportunities either.

But I was proud of myself for advocating for myself with the employment workers. If they are going to collect a salary under the guise of doing the above bullet points with people enrolled in the dislocated workers program, they better be prepared to be held accountable, and take responsibility for being political and sabotaging people's rehiring opportunities just because they don't like their personality.

I hear you about lack of competence of government employment agencies. I deal with them as a part of my job description. They are notorious not answering phone calls and emails and not checking up on clients. They need to be constantly harassed to get job done. Good for you advocating for yourself and pushing forward. I hope everything works out

It's a relief to hear from another poster who has direct experience with "the county." Seriously, do people apply for county jobs, because they don't WANT to work but want to get paid? Seems like that is the trend from my personal experience.

I wrote directly to the program demanding to be removed immediately. A workforce employee responded that he would forward my request (demand) to a supervisor. They'd better let me out of that awful program. Great in theory, TERRIBLE, AWFUL, HORRIBLE in practice.

They can never remember anything. “What’s the status of application for so snd so?” “Who is that? I don’t know anything about this person.” “Hm let’s see you’ve met with her THREE times with me and her mother present, and I submitted all paperwork to you, I’ve been following up with emails and phone calls so you can’t say you don’t know who that is”. Then he has to go dig through files, more time wasted . I think they just don’t care.

And the most horrible is that a lot of people become disillusioned and give up on getting help from the county or state because they just don’t have it in them to fight the system.

That's exactly what's happened to me. I'm totally disillusioned with my county's dislocated workers program. It is POINTLESS.

These so-called employment guidance counselors probably have caseloads of so many people unemployed like me, that they just don't care anymore, to make an effort to be the one to proactively reach out.

Like, clients who need job-support services should not have to go chase down their employment guidance counselor. And that's what I've been doing for so long with no results.

I will be livid if I am not released from that stupid county program. I will go to my legal aid office if I have to, to file an appeal. Or go to my state's attorney general and demand that he get me removed as a client.

Totally ridiculous.

Motts, I am very sorry you are going through this. Good for you for advocating for yourself. What type of work do you do?

Good news. This morning -- ironically enough -- my ghost-who-never-helped-me employment guidance counselor sent me an email that I was released from my county dislocated workers program. It's as if the past 7 months in that program never happened.

I did find a certification program that is tuition free, so I will go to that Zoom info session as its program starts in 2 weeks. After 4 weeks of online instruction you're given a certificate and job placement assistance (no guarantee of a job, but the fact that they connect their students to employers via a list with contact names in human resources is a start).

PinkandBlue: I do a lot of things for work. I'm sort of a high educated gypsy, if you will.

I am inspired to write an OpEd column today about my horrible experience in a county program and just rip them to shreds. I'm sure many in my reading audience with not only sympathize, but agree with my view that county programs stink.

Good luck with certification program!!!

Thanks divine1966. It's for administrative office support. It's 7 weeks long, 4 days a week on Zoom. I hope to god it leads to a full-time administrative job.

It would be awesome, good goal

Well unfortunately the class is full. So, I have to do an internet search for another free admin cert program now. The whole point of me joining a dislocated workers program was so that the employment guidance counselor could give me links to these cert programs...7 months ago when I joined. I've have a full time job by now if they had done their job helping me. But here I am, 7 months later, scrambling to find employment b/c of their gross incompetence and apathetic attitude. AND during a pandemic when millions are unemployed who I have to compete for jobs against.

Hi Motts, I'm really sorry this is happening to you. Two-and-a-half years ago I lost my employment when the company I worked for closed. One of my plans was to work over the tax season preparing income tax returns. I figured I could take a course with one of the tax preparation services and either work for them or work for a CPA. I figured it would give me something to put on my resume and would also let me earn some money. The other thing I did was to look at what type of jobs are constantly hiring. I decided to learn to do something that would not be affected by a poor economy, or that might face obsolesce because of technology; yet would be quick to learn and not overly costly to obtain any necessary licensing.

Sometimes we are forced onto a different path and I know it isn't easy. Keep your spirts up and keep searching.

Thanks PinkandBlue for your encouragement and for sharing that you had a similar experience regarding job loss and being forced onto a different path.

At least it's a goal to work towards for me. The path I was on 7 years ago was thwarted by an academic chair of the dept., who hated my guts (she sabotaged myself and 4 other grad students' outcomes in the program), and some other reasons. So, for 7 years I've struggled to forge a new career path.

Financial independence is my main goal right now but I don't want to take a job that pays under $14/hr b/c i calculated my rent and monthly bills out and anything under $14/hr won't cover me. So at least I have a financial baseline to measure all the jobs I apply for. But I'm putting all of my job-eggs into a certification program basket.

I am finding out some cert programs that are funded by a nonprofit go for either 2,4, or 7 weeks with job placement at the end. But you can't do more than one cert program for free. You can only do one cert program for free that's funded by the nonprofit offering it.

Of course, I found another cert program that is 8 months and under $10K but costs tuition, so I'm seriously considering that as a backup cert program if i can't find another cert program in admin. Ugh.