Job Corps kicks off YouTube recruiting campaign

The Labor Department's Job Corps program, which provides education and training to 62,000 economically disadvantaged youths, has launched a series of videos on YouTube, and sent a public service announcement to 650 radio stations to boost recruitment and awareness.

"This fulfills a promise I made to you that ... we would do whatever we could to spread the word and market the wonderful opportunities that Job Corps offers its students," Esther Johnson, national director of the program, wrote in an e-mail to Job Corps staff and participants.

She said the program was part of a three-year campaign, and the focus at the moment was matching Job Corps training to technical certification standards in higher-paying career fields.

"We have ensured that the training we're providing meets the standards of the certifications in the industries," she said. "We can say that our young people who have graduated from this training program meet the guidelines that have been established by the industry…. When we go out and target these young people, we can assure them that the training they're going to receive in Job Corps meets the industry standards."

The YouTube videos include speeches by Tiffany Williams, Kelvin McJunkin Jr. and David Bol, three Job Corps participants who spoke at October's Job Corps summit in Washington. Johnson said the number of videos would expand to include Job Corps advertisements and Spanish-language programming.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao "instructed us to think outside the box, and as part of that, we need to think about ways to make sure the population we are targeting knows about Job Corps," Johnson said. "This population utilizes the Internet, and they utilize YouTube a lot, so we thought, 'Why don't we put excerpts of the speeches online?' We have a consolidated media and advertising campaign."

Johnson said Job Corps was working with a marketing research firm to shape its advertising and drawing on students' experiences to create television commercials.

"They have gone to different markets, they have held focus groups with young people, and a lot of their advertisements and our brand for Job Corps have been tested with these young people," she said. "We've gone to different Job Corps centers, and we have ads that show the students in action, and then we have some of the students who are speaking in the ads, talking about what they're doing and how it's been a positive experience."