The Employment Assistant – a designated website on topics of study and employment for the young people of Jisr al-Zarqa
Our
Project
As young people graduate from high school, they enter a new period in their life where they must find their own path and take responsibility of their future. Often this task is difficult and ominous, especially when there is insufficient guidance. In the course of meetings and dialogue with residents, it has been indicated that one essential area in which the young people of Jisr al-Zarqa are missing guidance concerns education and employment. Most prominent is the lack of access to information regarding various study options, available jobs and career tracks, the stages that must be overcome on the road to achieving one’s goals, and the general ability to define “what is the goal” and what one wants to do in his/her adult life.
The technological solution we are proposing is making this knowledge accessible via the ‘Employment Assistant’, a dedicated website intended for the (young) people of Jisr al-Zarqa, comprising all the information necessary in the process of building a career and finding work.
The idea behind the website is creating a platform that accompanies the career building process across all stages, from initial deliberations of “what do I want to do in life” including the range of professional study and education possibilities, through preparation of a curriculum vitae/ résumé, job-seeking, conducting oneself at work, and knowing one’s worker rights.
The website was built on the WIX platform, a free platform for developing websites, which is easy to learn and operate and does not require prior knowledge in site building. For each stage we created a page with a general explanation of the topic of interest (e.g. “writing a CV”) and relevant links, such as a list of study institutes and professional courses, job search engines, CV templates, job interview preparation videos, workers’ rights websites, etc.
The site will be available in two different interfaces: internet PC-operated website, and as a phone app that will enable access to residents without a computer. In addition, the phone app will allow fast and easy sharing of the site link via relevant whatsapp groups.
The aim is to transfer the responsibility for managing the site and app to local representatives elected by Jisr’s youth center who will continue to operate, edit, add, augment, modify it and more, thus turning it into a useful tool for the young men and women of Jisr al-Zarka and its residents in general.
