While many job seeker service organizations have pivoted to virtual offerings and maintaining an online presence, expanded and more interactive virtual programming could be put in place to further enhance the reach to job seekers and diversify the variety of online services. After months of chaos, with the public workforce system thrown into a suddenly virtual environment in early 2020, there is now an imperative to be more strategic with virtual programming.

Understanding that a return to place-based service may be in the distant future, more advanced and varied types of job seeker programming could be developed. Because of real concerns and threats regarding COVID-19, as well as job seeker and service provider safety, programming should be designed and delivered with a focus on virtual services.

A new Medium blog post from the Heldrich Center provides suggestions for job seeker programming to create virtual spaces that instill a sense of community in programming and address the social and emotional components of job search. The suggestions provided could be used as a toolkit for offering strategically virtual programming for job seekers.