Stay tuned for a job.
That`s the message at a number of Chicago-area radio stations. Inspired by the state`s 8.5 percent unemployment rate (7.3 percent nationally), they are trying to help out-of-work listeners find employment.
The effort got a boost in mid-January when several on-air personalities were jolted by the fact that 9,000 Chicagoans had lined up at the new Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers to apply for 500 positions.
”I was really moved by one guy out there holding his baby who said he had been out of work for a year,” said Bob Collins, WGN-AM 720`s morning man, who has aired job listings on his show intermittently over the last two years. ”I went on the radio and talked about it the next morning and a guy called up who had two openings at his company,” Collins said. ”It just kind of snow-balled from there.”
According to WMAQ-AM 670 executive editor Jim Frank, the inspiration for
”Job File”, which his station started in late February, was right outside the station`s windows-the people waiting for jobs at the Sheraton.
”In the past we`ve had people talk about ways we could help the unemployed,” he said. ”But what really gave us the jab to do something was the morning we came to work and looked out our windows in the NBC Tower and saw several thousand people lined up in absolutely rotten weather outside the new Sheraton.”
Frank said a couple of days before, he had watched a rerun of the movie
”Grapes of Wrath.”
”I said to our people, `Ladies and gentleman, take a look at the
”Grapes of Wrath” of 1992.` After that, we put our heads together to see what we could come up with.”
WMAQ`s ”Job File” features information about job openings collected from the Illinois Department of Employment Security and from employers who telefax listings to a special number, 312-245-6098. After their validity has been checked, the station airs the job listings weekdays between 5 a.m. and noon and all day on weekends.
Collins says his station got more than 2,000 responses to its request for job listings, and he received ”thank you” notes from several people who landed jobs after hearing the listings on WGN.
”Radio is such an intangible medium,” said Collins. ”There`s never anything you touch directly. This was something that was very tangible, and we may go back and do it again.”
The various radio stations offering the service say it`s difficult to gauge how many listeners have actually found jobs from the on-air ”Help Wanteds.” WMAQ`s Frank says a one-time mention that the Board of Election Commissioners was hiring election judges resulted in more than 200 calls from station listeners.
Shahera Karim of the south suburbs found a job by listening to the radio. She was one of two WBBM listeners hired for sales work by Oh Joy! Custom Gift Baskets after hearing about the positions on the station.
”I had been looking for a part-time job for a year, and this was a great way to find one,” she said. ”It was much easier than looking in the help-wanted section of the newspaper.”
Job listings on radio are not new. According to WBBM-AM 780 news director Chris Berry, the station had an on-air program in 1946 to help World War II veterans re-entering the job market.
The station`s current ”Job Link” service began earlier this month, although Berry says station community affairs director Maria Munoz proposed a similar idea two years ago.
WBBM`s ”Job Link” listings can be heard at 15 and 30 minutes past the hour. Employers with job openings call 312-78-CARES, which connects them with co-sponsoring United Way/Crusade of Mercy staffers who verify the job information. According to Berry, more than 60 employers listed jobs on WBBM in the first two weeks of the service.
”The nature of our format means that our audience covers a broad realm of socioeconomic classes,” he said. ”Consequently, the jobs that have been listed have covered a broad spectrum-everything from highly specialized jobs like licensed stockbrokers and mechanical engineers to truck drivers and receptionists.”
A slightly different approach is taken by WVAZ-FM 102.7 which, like WMAQ, receives job information from the state. Listings for the ”V-103 Job File”
are updated daily on the station`s comment and suggestion line (708-524-1285) rather than broadcast on the air.
According to WVAZ program director Steve Harris, the high level of unemployment among African-Americans makes the service a natural for the black-oriented station.
”Black unemployment is high, but the real trigger that sparked the `Job File` was when cutbacks were made in public assistance,” he said. ”We can`t go around putting money in people`s hands, but we can provide an easy way to match people up with jobs.”
Another black-oriented station trying to help listeners find jobs is WGCI-FM 107.5. For the last couple of weeks job openings have been read on the ”Doug Banks and Co.” morning drive show every Monday at 7:35 a.m.
”Times are hard, and people need the opportunity to find out about jobs,” said morning show executive producer Karen Lightfoot. ”This is an avenue for us to reach out into the community and try to help people.”
What isn`t clear yet is whether the help-wanteds of the airwaves will benefit significant numbers of people or whether they`re just good public relations in a bad economy. Dan Lacey, a nationally recognized expert on workplace issues and editor of Workplace Trends newsletter, sees a down side to radio stations broadcasting job openings.
”There are a lot of well-intentioned bad ideas out there, and this is one of them,” he said. ”Reading job listings on the radio doesn`t work, and to a great extent it can frustrate and hurt people. What happens is you get one of two things: You get listings of jobs so bad that nobody wants them, or you get good jobs being applied for by people who do not in any way have the skills that those jobs require.”
WMAQ`s Frank strongly disagrees with Lacey:
”Okay, what we`re doing might be considered a meager attempt at solving the problem of unemployment. But even if we can only find one person a week a job, we can feel we`re adding something positive to a very dire situation.”
