Skills for Chicagoland’s Future (SCF) is a public-private partnership committed to returning unemployed and underemployed Chicagoland job seekers to the workforce while meeting the hiring needs of employers. As a demand-driven intermediary, SCF focuses on the hiring needs of businesses, creating a skilled, flexible and adaptable workforce. SCF works with businesses across all industries on a range of occupations, from entry-level positions to mid- and high-skill positions requiring train-to-hire solutions.
SCF partners with businesses to hire the unemployed and underemployed and designs sourcing strategies to either directly identify job seekers or facilitate train-to-hire programs to place the unemployed and underemployed into open positions. SCF utilizes a multi-channel approach to identifying qualified talent, including digital marketing, tapping into the State database of unemployment insurance claimants, referral partnerships with workforce development agencies and community colleges, and event-based recruiting. This approach demonstrates SCF’s commitment to sourcing candidates from the entire population of unemployed and underemployed job seekers, including those that may not be eligible for public assistance.
SCF’s innovative approach is modeled through accessing and coordinating government funding for train-to-hire programs and directly placing job-ready unemployed and underemployed candidates into open positions. SCF has placed more than 1,400 unemployed and underemployed Chicagoland job seekers into employment with over 50 local businesses to date. SCF’s employer partners have signed commitments to hire more than 900 unemployed job seekers in 2015.
