Valley College hosted a job fair as part of their partnership with the Mayor’s Office Economic & Workforce Development Department.
By Maïa Richaud, Valley Life Editor
Hire L.A. job fair on campus, April 11 Ivonne Elias for the Valley Star
The Mayor's Office in collaboration with Valley hosted Hire L.A., a job fair program that offers low income students opportunities to find summer or year-round paid internships in fields like public service and climate education.
College and high school students met with employers to learn about internship opportunities offered to L.A. residents ages 16 to 30 who come from low-income zip codes, with the aim to ensure that the city provides opportunities for young people to build their resumes and have an opening for their careers.
“We're looking to fill not just jobs but to give youth an opportunity to explore careers that they are interested in,” said the CEO of the non-profit company Well-Suited Janet Lavender. “They have companies that are offering all sorts of opportunities and if the youth feel that it's something that they are interested in, then they're free to apply and if they get selected they can go and work for that company for the summer.”
At the job fair, students were able to receive help filling out applications on the spot, and meet with the Hire L.A. members to ask questions directly. However, that doesn't mean that if a student wasn't able to attend any of the fairs that they cannot apply online; the application process is available on their website at “hirelayouth.com.”
“You never find out that those people exist, and I think that they are really cool,” said Alina Lysak, computer science and economics major. “Some of the opportunities are really great. Especially if you look for something more specific. But I know that there are some marketing opportunities here, some social work, and it's really cool. I plan to apply to a bunch of stuff. There are a few things that are actually very interesting for me.”
The students will have 120 hours worth of work that they can complete over six weeks. It is about 20 hours a week of work, like part-time jobs or accelerated paid internships.
“Through our program we are providing stipends, not necessarily wages,” said Elder Sanabria. “It is minimum wage in terms of how much they'll make, but we're providing stipends and so if the student, for example, or their family is receiving some sort of social benefit, they don't disqualify even if they're getting an increase in their quote-unquote income because it's a stipend, not wages or salary.”
Employers present were already contractors with the City of Los Angeles. The program held information sessions in February and in March to invite new organizations to become contractors with the program. Hire L.A. works with more than 50 community-based organizations, and its target is to get a thousand students employed for the summer period.
Two other in-person job fairs will be organized, at L.A. Trade-Tech College on April 23, and at L.A. Southwest College on May 2. The program anticipates a virtual event in May for people who could not make it to the previous fairs. A combination of all those organizations are either tabling all three events or just one depending on where they're recruiting for.
“We wanted to make sure that students kind of had an area to go to,” said Elder Sanabria. “So we were able to make sure that we contacted organizations that were in this area too so that if kids were interested in a paid summer employment opportunity that it would be at least within reasonable distance to where they live at.”