The Department of Workforce Development is changing things up a bit to develop the connection between job seekers and employers with an updated website. On the new website, job seekers can search for potential jobs, and employers can search for potential employees.
This new addition along with the “easy r?sum? tool,” a fill-in-the-blank system with all the information needed to put on a r?sum?, are two of the new features of the updated DWD website. DWD spokesperson Howard Cosgrove described the array of people who have a use for the site. “Anyone can use this, whether they are just out of high school, just graduating from college or looking to get back into the workforce after they have been out of it for a few years,” Cosgrove said.
All types of jobs, from accounting to marketing, are posted on the website. Job seekers and employers can search key words to find the right jobs or people that they are looking for. Cosgrove explained that the search tool works better with the use of specific information regarding experience.
“Most employers are looking for an employee for a specific position, so it is beneficial to include all information on the website about experience that you have had,” Cosgrove said.
Gary Green, a professor of rural sociology in economic and workforce development at the University of Wisconsin, has mixed feelings about the new website, saying that most find jobs through informal contacts, allowing for an exchange of more information. “On the one hand, online searches can’t hurt,” Green said. “I know of several undergraduate students who have found jobs this way. It provides them with a wider search strategy and gets their information out to more employers.”
Cosgrove said though it may help with the unemployment rate in Wisconsin, the intent of the DWD’s website update is to become more modern.
Additional features, such as video vignettes of what certain jobs entail, are scheduled to be added in December. Updating is set to continue throughout the next couple of years with continued technological innovations.
