The Downtown Job Center, Charlottesville’s municipal career services center, celebrates its one year anniversary Thursday.
The center is a certified satellite partner of the Virginia Workforce Development Center’s Charlottesville branch, a majority state-funded agency. The Downtown Center operates as part of the city’s office of economic development.
The job center was launched last September in the lower level of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library on E Market Street.
The office, which sits in a roughly 250 square foot space, exists as a way for Charlottesville and Albemarle residents to seek assistance in their career search. Services include resume building, interviewing and basic computer skills.
Hollie Lee, chief of workforce development strategies at Charlottesville’s department of economic development, said the downtown location is more convenient than the Virginia Workforce Development Center’s Hydraulic Road location. There is, however, a bureaucratic distinction.
“We are a satellite partner of Virginia Workforce Center — we refer clients back and forth,” Lee said. “However, all of our resources and staffing are through the city of Charlottesville.”
It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of the Center as it does not necessarily act in the capacity of case management for each person who seeks their services, Lee said. However, she said the center’s intensive training programs have been effective, and all of the approximately 40 employees participating in programs at the Center have been offered jobs.
Currently, the Downtown Job Center has no official connection with the University. However, both the Curry School of Education and the University Health Center have acted as partners in training the Job Center staff in relevant skills.
The Career Center is unrelated to the Job Center, said Everette Fortner, associate vice president of career and professional development at the University Career Center.
“Our mission [is] focused squarely on students,” Fortner said.
The Downtown Job Center will host an open house between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Thursday, open to the public, in celebration of its first year in operation.
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