HOLYOKE — After 29 years at 850 High St., MassHire Holyoke announced they are relocating to a new office at the STEAM Building, 208 Race St., effective March 31.
The new location provides a welcoming environment designed to better serve job seekers, employers and community partners.
MassHire Holyoke interim Executive Director and Vice President of Programs and Services Kate Smith talked to Reminder Publishing about the move.
She explained that the move had “been a long time coming,” and the whole moving process took nearly two years.
“Our space we had been in was no longer meeting our needs. We’ve been in that same location for 28 years. It served us well at the beginning, but we felt like we needed more space, we needed more workshop space,” Smith said.
She said they also wanted to be in a location that had access to more bus routes and public transportation as well as in the “flats” section of Holyoke where a lot of their clients live and it is more walkable for people.
MassHire Holyoke provides a wide range of career and workforce development services, including job search assistance and workshops, a fully equipped resource center, career counseling, training programs and employer recruitment support.
Smith explained, “What we offer to the job seeker community is assistance with gaining the skills they need to find employment so learning how to write resumes, how to interview, how to network, how to get the computer skills they need, how to fill out an online job application.”
The resource center allows people to walk in and use one of the computers or copy, fax or scanning machine.
MassHire Holyoke also offers access to free training programs to obtain skills to change or enter new careers.
To the business community, MassHire Holyoke provides free access to its business account reps to post jobs and host job fairs.
Smith talked about more programs that MassHire Holyoke provides and stated, “We also provide a lot of labor market information and date to employers like what is the average wage for this position? What is the growth rate in this area for this position? We can provide that data pretty quickly.”
For anyone looking to benefit from any of MassHire Holyoke’s offerings, Smith said they ask everybody to start by attending a career center seminar/orientation. It is an overview of all the services MassHire Holyoke has to offer.
People can attend an orientation either virtually on Mondays or in person on Wednesdays. Smith said they asked that people to schedule in advance.
After attending the orientation, you officially become a member and can make appointments for workshops or to see counselors. Walk-in counseling services are available every day.
MassHire Holyoke also manages a Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment program to help individuals collecting unemployment benefits with the process.
Smith stated, “We would love people to come in and look at the center. Take a look at what we’re offering, introduce themselves, get to know us. We would love to have people in this community take advantage of it.”
To learn more about MassHire Holyoke or register for workshops, readers can visit masshireholyoke.org.
