Imparting Skills and Confidence

As a volunteer job coach at the Men’s Shelter, Randy Crews recognizes the importance of building confidence and preparing men to re-enter the workforce.

What do you do as a job coach?

My job is to train, mentor, and help build skills and confidence in these men so they can successfully go out and become re-employed.

How do you help the men build confidence?

One key thing is their “2-minute commercial.” That sums up their resume, cover letter, and who they are. You build the confidence by uncovering areas they might not want to talk about, and it could be minor or major things in their background. You build those skills not only with the mental, but also the emotional and spiritual skills. I quote Philippians 4:14, “I can do all things through Christ Jesus who gives me strength”…because that’s what’s at the heart of this confidence building.

Is there any particular thing you see a lot of men struggling with when they come into Voc-Ed?

Many times, they have the wrong attitude or the worldly lie, “I am a mistake.” Really it should be “I made a mistake.” We can’t erase what happened, but we can develop good answers, and those answers would be, “Mr. Employer, this is what I did in the past. I’m not proud of that. I’ve made the following changes, this is who I am now, and I’m ready, willing, and able to go to work.”

What is the best part of job coaching?

Last week, I spent time with one of the candidates going over prospective job interview questions and building the confidence to put his best effort forth in the interview, and I said, “This is how I want you to present yourself, this is the focus I want you to have, this is the confidence I want you to show in speech, dress, and body language” – He got offered the job…That’s the real payoff for me.