Friday, May 21, 2010 | 3 a.m.
Southern Nevada’s unemployment is creating situations most don’t think about or have realized. Forget college; teenagers are dropping out of school to get jobs to help pay bills. Forget retirement; grandparents who worked the same job for decades now have to learn new skills to get a new job in a new field. Seventeen to 87, that’s the age range of your friends and neighbors looking for a job as you read this.
From doctors to waitresses to lawyers to accountants to housekeepers, Project Ezra is preparing and helping Southern Nevadans get back to work. A program of the Jewish Family Service Agency, Project Ezra has been created to provide solutions in response to the catastrophic effect of being economically disadvantaged by unemployment.
Beyond helping people get back to work, Project Ezra provides extensive psychological counseling, job-interview and training seminars and much more to not only place people in jobs, but to enable these individuals to be confident and competent once more after enduring job loss.
During our first year out of 500 potential job applicants, Project Ezra has placed 279 Southern Nevadans in new positions.
There is a significant psychological trauma that losing a job imposes on a person and their family. All too quickly after becoming unemployed, people can’t pay their mortgage; purchase food they are accustomed to or maintain health insurance. Ezra’s role is to instill optimism in opportunity by encouraging people to be proactive and pragmatic in their job search. Many of our clients don’t effectively use techniques providing significant advantages in an extraordinarily competitive job market.
Project Ezra, whose name is Hebrew for “help,” is a program of the Jewish Family Service Agency, a comprehensive, nonsectarian, social service agency. Project Ezra is not a job placement agency, but rather a program pairing employers throughout Southern Nevada with potential job candidates. Our services are free to both job applicants and employers.
For every available job position, there are 800 candidates. Project Ezra screens candidates for employers. In the meantime, the agency goes one step further by psychologically rehabilitating its clients. One of the program’s primary principles: networking is key to securing employment. Finding a job online has a 1 percent success rate versus an 80 percent success rate if the job is secured through networking.
On Sunday, May 23, the community will be able to see up close what Project Ezra is all about. Jewish Family Service Agency will host the third annual Tzedakah Brunch. Brunch begins at 11 a.m. at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health Activity Center. The brunch’s theme: “Miracles Take Work.” We call them “miracle Mentors,” 10 exceptional local businesspeople who will be paired with Project Ezra clients to network and learn job interviewing skills.
Honorees to be recognized include Rabbi Sanford Akselrad, who was key in the founding of Project Ezra; Andy Katz, president of Manpower Inc. of Southern Nevada; the UNLV Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies; and the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. Successful Ezra client Kevin Bailey will be featured and I will deliver the keynote address.
Project Ezra hosts free group employment workshops designed to teach and instill in attendees the gamut of skills needed to succeed in today’s challenging job market. The workshop includes background information on the current state of the economy; self-esteem building techniques; resume writing skills; lessons on networking with poise and professionalism and basic methods for creating favorable perceptions on potential employers, which include how social media profiles should be written and appear online.
The value of assisting members of our community to be adept at securing work is fundamental to our achieving economic recovery in Nevada. We are seeking prospective employers who wish to take advantage of Ezra clients’ competitive edge as well as anyone wanting to learn more or interested in helping support our efforts.
Christina Primack is the director of Project Ezra
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