Overview

PA CareerLink of Lancaster County was formed in 2000 when 14 employment, social service, and educational organizations agreed to work together as one entity at its current Liberty Place location. The PA CareerLink is the connecting link betweeen hundreds of County residents who come to the PA CareerLink weekly to search for jobs, upgrade their skills, and look for new careers and Lancaster County businesses that want to hire them...but the PA CareerLink is much more than just a job-finding service.

For Jobseekers

People who come to the PA CareerLink can use a variety of services...some free and some with a small fee.

• Use the Internet to search for a job
• Create your own resume, print it out, and copy it
• Work on your interviewing skills
• Use the telephone to start a job search
• Talk with a career counselor about your career objectives
• Get information about careers
• Take a skill assessment and aptitute test on the road to becoming Ready2Work
• Work on your basic skills like reading, writing, and math
• Improve your English
• Study for and take your GED exam
• Apply for cash and medical assistance, food stamps and child health programs
• Improve your keyboarding skills
• Learn to find your way around a computer

In addition, the PA CareerLink works with you to improve your foundational (reading, analytical, and math) skills as well as your workplace behavior practices and offers a Career Readiness Credential based on your performance on the WorkKeys assessment system and your participation in the Ready2Work program. You can also earn a Microsoft Digital Literacy or Unlimited Potential Certificate. Additional pre-employment training in pre-allied health, construction, welding, forklift driving, assembly, printing, and other hard skill areas is offered.

Employers are encouraged to recognize the Career Readiness Credential and guarantee qualified applicants who have a profile that matches that of the job an interview.

For Employers

Helping employers find qualified workers has been a part of our mission since the 1930's. Today, technology has allowed us to do labor exchange in a very different way. PA CareerLink sees 250 new people in addition to hundreds of visits from returning jobseekers each week. Our potential workers include folks who are looking for a better job, people who have lost their jobs through dislocations, and prospective employees who are entering the workforce for the first time.

We also provide...

• Listing of job openings to potential employees
• Promotion of Lancaster County companies as good places to work at www.jobs4lancaster.com
• Information on key occupations within the workforce
• Pre-employment screening
• Interviewing space for employers at the PA CareerLink
• Connections with hundreds of job seekers each week
• Coordination of media-based career promotion initiatives

With funding from the PA Department of Labor and Industry, the Workforce Investment Board operates eight Industry Training Consortia and participates in three more in the region. Each Consortium has an industry-led Steering Committee that meets regularly to plan curriculum. A Project Manager who is typically a subject-matter expert is the operational point of contact. Each company completes a company-specific training plan as part of the admission process to Consortium membership; individual company training plans are collated into a shared training plan that becomes the Consortium curriculum for the year. Typically, the funding provides a 60% subsidy for the cost of training with the employer paying for the balance of the cost.