New Jersey residents take control of their job search

New Jersey Career Network helps people manage the stress of a job search by helping them spend the right amount of time on each step of the process, like finding the right mindset, writing cover letters and properly preparing for interviews. NJCN also recognizes that the unemployed often face additional problems that go beyond the job search. Many need help finding health care, securing housing, or getting food assistance.

After being brought in by New America with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, we partnered with the NJ Office of Innovation and Rutgers University’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development on the NJCN. It was clear to all parties that we needed to find a solution to address the difficulties of unemployment while providing access to other critical services that make a difference in people’s lives.

Then the pandemic sent unemployment rates through the roof.

We had been working with the NJCN for four months when Covid-19 arrived. In April 2020, the unemployment rate in New Jersey went from 3.80% to 16.30%.  We knew that New Jersians had a greater need for the NJCN than we could have foreseen. Working closely with our users, we took action to help job seekers find the pandemic-specific resources they were looking for. We also began asking: In a world where the stress of a pandemic mounts and in-person interactions are limited, what does a job seeker need to know? What do they need to do? We continued to build features and develop content with empathy and understanding that the world is uncertain always — because in the Spring of 2020, that uncertainty was greater than ever.