Haideh, a recent Riverside graduate who got a job as a Youth Program Coordinator at Women for Afghan Women, spoke highly of the workforce development program.
One of Riverside’s key priorities is helping students develop job readiness skills that will prepare them to enter the workforce. We spoke with Nursen Turan, who taught Level 5 students the past three class cycles, about the ways in which she incorporates workforce development training into her classes.
“Students are really hungry for job readiness training. The job search is an especially anxiety-inducing process for our students, who need to learn how to give good answers on top of speaking English well.”
To address this need, Nursen puts an emphasis on making job readiness lessons uplifting and engaging for students. As a daily warm-up, students brainstormed answers to different interview questions. Another lesson that received positive feedback from students was an overview of hard skills and soft skills and how to market oneself throughout the application process.
Nursen recognizes the impact of cultural differences, particularly in the resume writing workshop: “The rules of resume writing are not necessarily the same. I focused a lot on cultural differences, which I experienced when I entered the workforce as an immigrant.”
A few do’s and don’ts include not putting a picture on resume and knowing that no one is supposed to inquire about their religious and ethnic background or family history. Nur teaches her classes about the emphasis on American optimism in the interview process and the need to be dynamic and upbeat. The feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive, with a large consensus of students stating that the lessons helped build their confidence in tackling the interview process.
Nursen is extremely excited about the future of the workforce development program. In May, Nursen and Elizabeth Sprenger, now teaching Level 5, will be presenting on how to embed career readiness into language lessons at the ABE ESOL Conference, an adult education conference in NYC. Expanding Workforce Development services is a key component of Riverside’s plans for the future. Program enhancements will include professional networking events to connect students with similar professional backgrounds, hosting career panels with Riverside alumni speakers, and building digital literacy lessons on an array of necessary hard skills including Google Suite and LinkedIn.
“True to the Riverside mission, our career development program demonstrates that immigration integration rarely stops at language learning. Our goal is to provide participants with all of the key supports they need to reach their employment goals,” Berta Colón, Executive Director.