Job auditions offer hope to unemployed

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Bill Lewis was under more pressure than most new hires when he began a job in information technology last year in Monroe, Conn. Jobless for a year, he had eight weeks to persuade his employer to keep him and pay his salary.

A commercial mailer had offered Lewis something usually associated with actors or dancers:

An audition.

It came through a nonprofit, Platform to Employment, that covered Lewis’ pay through a program that targets a major scar of the Great Recession: The 2.6 million Americans who have been jobless for more than six months. Many of them long have felt ignored by employers who assume their skills, drive or technological know-how have faded.

Platform to Employment provides job-search training before arranging subsidized auditions. This eliminates any risk to employers while giving the jobless an opening to prove themselves.

Evidence from companies that have used Platform have raised hopes for people who have endured prolonged unemployment. Some have impressed and surprised employers with their adaptability.

Lewis’ employer, Kevin Kuligowski of Creative Mailing Solutions, discovered he was both proficient in mail-management software and knowledgeable about postal regulations — a rare combination. When the audition ended, Kuligowski hired Lewis.

The audition cost Kuligowski nothing. And he could have cut Lewis loose afterward.

“Let me see what he can do” is how Kuligowski thought about the audition.

Lewis, 42, having built a nearly 20-year career before his audition, wrote a software application that saved the company a step in its packing process.

“I couldn’t be happier,” he said.

Since the recession officially ended nearly six years ago, economists have pointed with alarm to the plight of the long-term unemployed. Though their ranks have declined, there still are more people who have been jobless for longer than six months than during either of the previous two recessions, in 1991 and 2001.

On Friday, the government will issue its jobs report for April, which likely will show continued gains. Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 220,000 jobs, up from 126,000 in March. Studies find that those employers are less likely to interview candidates with long spells of unemployment, even when their qualifications are the same as for the short-term unemployed.

Joe Carbone, who launched the program in 2011, said roughly 80 percent of Platform’s participants have landed auditions and that 90 percent of those have been offered permanent jobs. Since June, the program has been funded by $3.5 million from the state of Connecticut to serve 500 long-term unemployed.