“Don’t let people underestimate you, don’t underestimate yourselves.” – Olga Rodriguez, SER Chief Program Officer

After 17 weeks of perseverance and dedication, our welding class has graduated! Setting aside over four months of one’s life to work towards personal betterment is a tricky thing to do. However, we are incredibly proud of all of our graduates for how far they’ve come and looked forward to continuing their journey with them through our employment services and financial opportunity center.

At the graduation ceremony, our graduates were treated to a line-up of experienced speakers to give them some insight on their future potential as well as behind-the-scenes insider tips from industry professionals. Our Chief Program Officer, Olga Rodriguez, began by sharing our graduates a message of encouragement. She gives co-workers and SER partners one clear message, “do not underestimate our clients.” At the graduation ceremony, she wanted to make sure our clients got the same message: “Don’t let people underestimate you, don’t underestimate yourselves.”

We had guest speakers Maria Martinez of Weld Force Group and Alan Solorzano, President of South Coast Welding Academy, give our clients some industry secrets. But, ultimately, they gave them the same message:

1. Do not be afraid to start as a helper.
2. Hard work and initiative will take you far in the welding industry.

“The skills I learned here, no one can take from me.” – Edgar Salazar, Welding Graduate

We concluded the ceremony by inviting one of our students to discuss his time in SER’s welding program. “I’ve never been somewhere where it’s all up to us,” said Edgar Salazar when discussing SER. “I appreciate everything they gave us. They gave us unlimited resources.”

Our resources do not go very far without our clients’ drive “to be” successful. Our welding program is extended, rigorous, and very competitive to get into. We are proud of our graduates and look forward to watching their bright futures.

The post Welding Class Conquers Four Months of Training appeared first on SERJobs.

The representatives attended the graduation and learned more about our qualified banking clients! As a result, our graduates are ready to take anything from a teller to a customer service representative to a relationship banker to a personal banker.

A special thanks to our sponsors and partners, The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation, Wells Fargo, Capital One, BBVA, Allegiance Bank, Bank of America, Comerica, Chase, Woodforest, Frost, Space City Credit Union, and United Way of Greater Houston.

The post Latest BankWork$ Co-Hort Interviews with Bank of America appeared first on SERJobs.

Taking the time to recognize this holiday strengthens our cultural ties as an organization with diverse staff and clients and also strengthens the community bond between staff members.

Our SER ofrenda will be up all of next week! We encourage all community members to stop by, grab some delicious La Chamba coffee, and take the time to honor your deceased family or friends.

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SERJobs Training Specialist, Deja King, orchestrated the event, welcoming a few speakers before certificates were presented. The first graduation speaker was SERJobs Chief Programs Officer, Olga Rodriguez. She made one thing clear to our clients– they must be willing to give themselves “permission” to be successful.  After that we had two potential employers speak to the graduates about their companies and what types of jobs they are hiring for. We are grateful to MeLisa Minter of ACARI Management Group and Donna Subwade of 3rd Ward Community Cooperative Builders for taking the time to speak to our clients about potential job opportunities.

The ceremony portion of the event came to a climax when students from both training programs stood up to share a few remarks. Lorenzo Cervantes graduating from our CORE training program said, “I’m just proud to have the chance to redeem myself. I look in the mirror and see a man with integrity.” Carlton Barney graduating from our CDL program discussed his experience before SER. He said that while he was in jail, re-entry program “filled my head with hope,” but when he got out he had no luck. “I went to 76 job interviews and was told no 76 times,” then he decided to give SER a chance and now he is on track to starting a new career.

SER would like to thank our sponsors and partners for their time, talent, and generous support of our clients and organization. We are grateful to Rebuild, USAA, DOL, and City of Houston.

The post Celebrating Recent CDL And Construction Clients appeared first on SERJobs.

A few rooms down, representatives from Census 2020 were also conducting presentations on the benefits of working as a census taker for the upcoming 2020 census. Compensation, expectations, and perks of this flexible position were all discussed in one of our classrooms before job-seekers were led to our computer lab to submit an application.

All-in-all it was a great day to be at SERJobs!

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“When women get together, good things happen.” – The Honorable Alicia G. Kerber Palma

Community representatives from various non-profit and governmental organizations around the Houston area gathered at SERJobs last week for a special welcome coffee event with the newly appointed Consul General of Mexico, the Honorable Alicia G. Kerber Palma.

Baker Ripley, the Houston Public Library, the District Attorney’s Office, and many more organizations were present for this special meeting. With a room full of women, the majority of them being from Hispanic or Latino dissent, the topic of conversation was centered around Consul Palma’s mission to empower immigrant women in the Houston area.

Representatives also discussed their current community projects, asked Palma questions, and broke down the best way to disseminate resources and information throughout their networks to better help community members.

With strong words spoken by Consul Palma and Carvana Cloud, Special Victims Bureau Chief, on the importance of keeping women safe– it is easy to sum up that the over arching theme was perseverance. As both women mentioned, “women are not inherently vulnerable.” They felt is was important to note that it is the, “situations they are placed in that render them vulnerable.”

The post Newly Appointed Consul General of Mexico Visits SERJobs appeared first on SERJobs.

October 15th marks the final day of Hispanic Heritage Month. At SER, we held two separate celebrations to mark the occasion. The first was just for SER staff. We took a moment to gather in our Lobby, and CEO, Sheroo Mukhtiar, shared a few words with everyone on the importance of diversity and Hispanic culture in shaping SER’s work. Her final remark to our staff was that taking the time to celebrate diversity “is an important part of who we are and what we do.”

Our second celebration was on a much larger scale. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office hosted their Hispanic Heritage Month Breakfast at our Workforce Opportunity Center on October 11th. More information on that event can be found here. Still, ultimately the event was a perfect snapshot of what Hispanic Heritage Month ought to be: a time to examine the interconnectivity of society’s institutions in advancing the prosperity of Hispanic Americans.

Regardless of the events held during this month, Hispanic culture is integral to the makeup of SER. Founded in 1964, SER came to be a result of a partnership between the American GI Forum, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Navy, and the US Department of Labor. SER currently operates to uplift lives and communities through education, employment, and empowerment through a national network of community-based organizations. Given the founding partnership with LULAC, our original goal was to serve Hispanic communities specifically. However, over time, SER Houston has evolved to best suit the needs of our community. Ultimately, SER serves everyone with barriers to employment, not just those with Hispanic backgrounds.

Although, we will never shy away from our roots. “SER” comes from the Spanish verb, “to be.” The spirit of our work will always embody our founding. We work to empower our clients to be whatever they want to be. Like the United States Military Veteran Joslyn Garcia, who, after returning to Houston, pursued our BankWork$ program, or previously incarcerated father, Abel Rosales, who found success in our welding training.

The list of accelerating Hispanic excellence within the Houston community goes on and on. A few examples are…

• Laura Cabriales uplifting herself and her children through our Administration Training.
• David Contreras becoming Vice President of First City Bank.
• Julie Cruz landing her first job.
• Abel Hilario being able to land a job that lets him work towards becoming a submersible engineer.

Hispanic Heritage Month may be ending tomorrow, but our dedication to uplifting Houston’s Hispanic community is as strong as ever. We are thankful for our foundational roots and our legacy of serving such a valuable community within America’s diverse citizenry.

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SERJobs, stemming from a League of United Latin American Citizens project, was the perfect backdrop to host this incredible event. District Attorney Ogg pointed to the synergy in the room perfectly by mentioning that the work at SERJobs “is public safety. When people have jobs to protect their families, they are far less likely to engage in criminal activities.”

Ultimately, the DOA called on the Hispanic community to celebrate the administrations various efforts to be more empathetic and inclusive of the way Hispanic individuals are treated in their system internally, like by actively hiring bilingual staff, and externally, through initiatives that are “changing the face of the way investigations occur,” according to Johna Stallings with the Special Victims Bureau.

Hispanic Heritage Month is the perfect time to celebrate the diversity behind Hispanic culture and to examine the interconnectivity behind our society’s institutions in advancing the prosperity of Hispanic Americans. SERJobs and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office understand this mission and are up to the task.

The post Harris County DA Hosts Hispanic Heritage Month Breakfast at SERJobs appeared first on SERJobs.

Following the graduation, the SER team wasted no time in beginning to prepare all of our clients for interviews with five employers hiring forklift operators on the spot. “Our goal here isn’t just training, but to get you hired and that’s what we’re here to do today,” said Deja King, SER Training Specialist, when addressing our clients. The SER team walked through interview etiquitte, how to phrase their history and resume gaps in a positive manner, and the importance of self-confidence; our clients are qualified, they’re an asset to employers, and we want to make sure they convey that when interviewing.

Clients were then given time to prepare amongst themselves or the option to go through a mock interview with members from our employment services team. Finally, the hiring event began and they had the opportunity to interview with Allied Universal, Spherion, Effex, Moody Gardens, and Meador Staffing.

We are so proud of all of the hardwork our clients put in to get to this day. We’re also thankful for the SER staff members that pulled this event together, Workforce Solutions for providing us with an event space, and our employers for taking the time to come interview our clients. See images of the event below!

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Attendees were able to navigate through tables of essential resources available throughout Houston, take their kids to the Kid Zone for fun crafts, head over to the Challenge Zone to try to beat one of our obstacles for a gift card, and go out to the patio to enjoy music by West End DJs, and grab a treat from La Chamba Cafe or The Lunch Box.

We also had a total of 22 employers from various industries including, but not limited to, Memco, United States Census 2020, VIP Staffing, Tyson Foods, Metro, Avance, Tech Trans International, The Houston LaunchPad, and many more.

Overall, we hosted over 99 adults and 30 children at our event alongside our 36 SER staff members and their 25 family and friends. We are so thankful to all of the staff members that made this happen, the organizations that helped make this possible, and to everyone in our community that helped celebrate with us. Browse our gallery of the event below!

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