- Washington’s Unemployment Insurance Agency Is Questioning Your Eligibility–What Can I Do?
- April 21 Marks the End of Long-Term Benefits in Washington State
- Washington Unemployment: Part Time Work, Severance Pay, Holiday Pay and Other Filing Nightmares
- How To Modify The Tax Withheld By The Washington Unemployment Office From Your Unemployment Benefits
- How To Apply or Cancel Direct Deposit Payments with the Washington Unemployment Office?
- Washington Unemployment Guidelines: How To Avoid Losing Your Unemployment Benefits
- Denied Unemployment Benefits Appeal Hearing; How To Prepare Your Unemployment Benefits Claim
- Denied Benefits By The Washington Employment Department? Learn How To Appeal Your Unemployment Insurance Claim
- Washington Unemployment Insurance Overpayments: Set The Record Straight
- Washington State’s Unemployment Insurance Overpayment Scandal and Employment Law: The Facts
Access Washington News- Ocean acidification blue ribbon panel meeting on May 23
- SR 99 Alaskan Way Viaduct to close this weekend, May 18-21
- Memorial Day observances to be held at state capitol
- State Patrol to hold additional cadet testing
- State revokes nursing assistant's license for sexual contact with a child
- Gov. Gregoire's statement on legislation to reauthorize Export-Import bank
- Washingtonians honored for their oil spill prevention work
- Commissioner and Governor prepare for fire season
- Washington Department of Financial Institutions warns of potential dangers of crowdfunding investment opportunities
- Get connected with the Washington State Patrol
Getting a check every week to pay your basic bills while unemployed is nice, but it is not enough. Most Washington workers hate to be on unemployment benefits. What they really need is a new job. Washington’s Employment Security Department knows this and is offering Washington unemployed workers access to valuable information on employment in Washington through a variety of databases and programs. This series of articles looks at these opportunities and explains how you can take advantage of them.
These programs include search databases for job openings, information on occupations organized by pay, skill requirements and demand, free resources for job seekers, resume assistance and free job-search workshops, to mention a few.
This article will start off the series by providing an in-depth guide on how Washington’s job search engine at Go2WorkSource.com works.
Work Source
If you are unemployed and looking for work in the state of Washington, Go2WorkSource.com needs to be on your bookmark list. This huge website provides a wide range of programs and databases to assist your job searching efforts.
The first window that appears when you visit Work Source is a quick job search interface, which allows you to filter your results by location, occupation and keywords. This allows you to fine tune your searches to your interests and location.
The first window you must select, location, is a required selection. It includes all the counties in Washington from Aberdeen to Yakima. However, if you are flexible about where you can work, you can also select all counties. This will broaden your horizons to any job opportunities within the state.
The second window in Work Source’s job search menu is dedicated to occupations. You can select which industry sector you are interested in, or qualified, to enter. The selection of occupations is huge ranging from architecture and engineering to transportation and materials moving. However, this is not a required window so don’t select it unless you have some level of expertise in a particular industry.
The third choice you must make is the work level you are interested in. I feel this is one of the highlights of this search engine, one you rarely find in other job databases. You can choose to filter your job results by part time or full time jobs, entry level jobs and short term only jobs. This is a huge deal for unemployed workers who want to work but do not have the circumstances to accept a full-time job. If that is your case just click on the part time only box and your results will only include part time jobs.
Once you have inserted your information, just press on search for jobs and start writing those application letters and resumes. Never done that? Would like help writing a resume? Read our next article.
WorkSource is Washington’s main source of employment services for unemployed workers. It brings together all the important information, resources and programs workers in Washington should be looking into if they want to find a new job. In this series of articles we will look in detail at some of the most important and useful programs available at WorkSource. This article looks at WorkSource’s workshops.
Workshops
Workshops are group training sessions that focus on practical employment issues. They are designed to provide the information and skills to help you find a new job. The key purpose is to help workers find an employer who is also searching for someone just like them, or if you are unemployed, just like you. There are three main steps you must take to achieve this. First you must get to know yourself, get to know your strengths and weaknesses and what skills you should hone on when marketing yourself. Second, you must know your potential employer, research the company, the type of work it does and the kind of employees it is looking for. This requires active research, an important skill for workers in today’s competitive workplace. Finally, you must learn how to show your employer that you are a match for what they are looking for and you can meet the requirements of the job. This is a skill even the most experienced workers sometimes lack. Marketing yourself, or as it is also called, marketing yourself, is not easy. For some, it goes against the grain to talk about their own accomplishments, achievements and skills. However, if you do not communicate what makes you a great catch for a company, why would they be in a rush to hire you when there is so many workers to choose from?
In order to help workers learn the skills requires to find a new job, WorkSource offers a six module training course, which targets the key steps to searching for employment. Below we highlight each of these modules and provide a link for each course. At the end of the article there is a list of the areas where these courses are offered. Click on the county you are interested in for more information.
Course 1: Learn How WorkSource Services work. This will help you understand what tools are your disposal and how to use them.
Course 2: Skills and abilities analysis. Learn to identify the skills you have to offer and the new skills you should acquire to improve your chances of landing yourself a job.
Course 3: Job Search strategies. If you are new to unemployment, you may never have had to search for a job. In times of plenty it is employers who must work hard to find employees. Now the situation is the other way round.
Course 4: Applications. Learn how to see things from the employers point of view. Understand what the employers is looking for and make sure you present yourself in the best possible light when you hand in your application for employment.
Course 5: Resumes and cover letters. For many workers a resume or a cover letter is filled with mysticism: something only highly trained office workers can do right. As you will see, writing an effective and eye-catching resume is a skill we should all have.
Course 6: Interviews. Interviews can be scary, even overwhelming. Practicing what to say, how to dress and rehearsing your replies to the harder questions can give you the confidence to ace your next big interview.
Bellingham | Bremerton | Chehalis | Everett | Kelso | Lynnwood|Mount Vernon | Oak Harbor | Olympia | Port Angeles | Pullman|Seattle-King County | Spokane | Tacoma | Vancouver