Minutes from June 6, 2001 Committee Meeting

Members present: Peg Mativi, Darrell Miller, Bob Winzeler, Doug Lay, Joan Lawrence, Pat Grischow, Luke McCormick, Paul Worstell, Jack Partridge, Pat Nowak, Bruce Wyngaard

Guests: Bill Baker, John Schuster, Sandy Blunt, Jim Adams, George Kaitsa, Anne Yelderman and Bob Levenstine, Katharine Elliott

Staff: Julie Andry, JC Wallace and Bob Haas

The Committee has spent some time trying to get a handle on OhioWorks. Working with OhioWorks is considered difficult for employers. Posting a job, doing word searches, finding job matches are tedious. Representative John Husted went to Peg Mativi and JC Wallace and offered to show the Board another system that they have found successful in Montgomery County.

OhioWorks is meeting several needs including the needs of Wagner-Peyser and TANF programs. The current system is designed more around the needs of the unemployed or underemployed but does not meet the needs of the technical workers.

Ohio State Representative John Husted and Bob Levenstine made a presentation on the NationJobs System. This is a national job matching system that the Montgomery County Job Center is currently using.

Bob Levenstine observed that tight labor conditions are going to continue for the forseable future. He believes that part of the difficulty that OhioWorks is having is that it was designed for a different economic time period. However, today it does not meet the current economic needs.

NationJobs might be used to enhance OhioWorks by focusing on employers or job seeker needs. The company started in 1988 and went online in 1995. They are currently experiencing 30 to 40 million hits a month on their main website. NationJobs is number 6 nationally doing job searches on the Internet.

Dayton set up a website specifically for Montgomery county. NationJobs is sponsored by Dayton Power & Light (DP&L) and other local businesses. It starts with a basic listing of jobs that contains job descriptions as the company has requested them. Job seekers can search those jobs by type of position, educational level, full-time/part time status and by salary.

NationJobs make it easy for businesses to post their job information by taking the information in the company format. NationJobs will take job information in any communication format the company would want to present including: fax, email, off their website or mail. Businesses do not have to do the data entry, NationJobs does that work for them.The goal is to make it easy for businesses to work with them. Businesses are busy and they don’t have the time to do the extra work to get their jobs posted. A lot of businesses are not familiar with Internet job postings. NationJobs hired web specialists to work with businesses to "dress up" their job descriptions in order to better fit Internet job searches. The businesses don’t have to worry that the information has to be in a certain format or program, NationJobs will format it to be consistent with those on the site.

Nationjobs did not bid on the OhioWorks (RFP) because they do not provide all of the types of systems and software support that OhioWorks provides.

Another function of NationJobs includes links to other web search engines. When a job seeker searches for work with national search engines they can use this service. The searches are organized based on categories of employment.

Nationjobs also offer a service that is called PJ Scout. PJ Scout allows the job seeker to enter all of their individual job search limits and give NationJobs an e-mail address. The individual will only be notified when a job that meets his/her requirements is posted. This allows the job seeker to search anonymously without the risk of losing his/her current job. The job seeker has the choice to contact the business directly or have the system make contact with the employer. The information is secure which reduces the risk to the job seeker. This gets to the passive job seeker who is employed but doesn’t want his employer to know he is looking for a job and wants to limit the type of job he would consider. This type of individual also doesn’t want to spend a lot of time or energy looking for a job and may not necessarily be looking for a job at the present time. These job seekers will only look at jobs that appear to be a better opportunity. Currently employed individuals who have the skill level employers are looking for is the type of candidate most companies would like to hire, and so the employer will pay substantial fees to private job search agencies to hire these individuals.

Employers can link their job postings to NationJobs so that job seekers can look at all of the jobs the company has to offer, and not just the one job listed on the web. This is an option the employer can take advantage of or not.

PJ Scout can be customized to allow job seekers to receive job openings in just one business, in whatever location the he/she is interested. PJ Scout can search just one company or multiple companies in one location or multiple locations. This meets the timing needs of the company that will have people applying for the job when the job is open.

NationJobs is a tool that is easy for employers and job seekers to use and doesn’t take much time and effort and to get the information needed in a timely manner.

NationJobs is not concerned with name branding when working with contract entities. They are willing to put up the same database and support of their current system under the OhioWorks name if desired.

NationJobs hasn’t completed development of an online resume system. It’s currently under construction. They don’t think that it will be a big part of their business in the future.

The Committee then had some brief discussions regarding some other related issues.

Compuware will provide the services that this committee and ODJFS requests. There are three functions that OhioWorks is currently providing: job matching, federal WIA reporting, and the eligible training provider system.

Nationally, it has been established that it is difficult to track One Stop participants who do not register in the program. Ohio is not the only state having trouble tracking this population.

NationJobs does not perform job matching or job screening functions. Businesses may have applicants who do not meet their requirements and they don’t have a system for employers to search for participants. What does the business community want? Do they want two systems? One that is easy to use and another that meets the needs of the federal programs? Do businesses want screened applicants? Do they want to be able to look at applicants for a pool of job candidates? 

Peggy Mativi, committee chair closed the meeting by stating that no action would be taken on the NationJobs model - the presentation was only intended to demonstrate one of the many job matching systems that are currently available.