We recently interviewed Cathy, a participant in the most recent gener8tor Upskilling Southern Virginia program. Cathy was unemployed at the start of the five-week program but with hard work and lots of determination, she had a job waiting for her on graduation day!
The goal of gener8tor Upskilling Southern Virginia is to help Southern Virginia residents get critical skills for in-demand jobs. The Upskilling curriculum is self-paced and virtual so you can complete it on your own time from home, the library, or anywhere with WiFi. Even though completing the curriculum is done independently, participants are part of a cohort, a network of peers who support each other and form a community. Cohort participants also get one-on-one coaching support for help with job searches, resume writing, and interview practice. At the end of the program, participants will have the ability to leverage gener8tor’s resources to access a job in their community or at national companies hiring for virtual jobs.
Even though she never expected to be impacted by COVID since her job was already remote prior to the pandemic beginning, Cathy was laid off in April of this year. The quality assurance and monitoring company she worked for lost one of their large contracts and had to trim their workforce – closing one chapter of Cathy’s career. Thankfully, the timing could not have been better as the gener8tor cohort began just at the right time for her to brush up her skills and start searching for a new job.
Cathy chose to take the customer service track to expand on her existing customer service experience, and she found the program immensely valuable. She said it’s important to learn soft skills to be prepared for the workforce, especially “learning how to listen”. It’s one of those things that everyone should be taught in high school but somehow gets missed. Have no fear – gener8tor Upskilling is a way to plug the gaps in your knowledge and learn soft skills that are beneficial to customer service jobs. If you’re still on the fence about applying for the gener8tor Upskilling program, let Cathy persuade you. She says “take it – it will change your life!”
Additional gener8tor Upskilling cohorts are being planned – sign up for our newsletter to be notified once the program application opens.
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LinkedIn Learning is offering free access to in-demand skills: sovainnovationhub.com/digital-skills/linkedin-learning