Each year Goodwill honors an individual or organization that consistently shares their time and talent for the benefit of Goodwillclients and employees. This year Goodwill honored Systems Personnel at the 2018 Pathways to Success Annual Achievement Awards.
You don’t get to be a leading executive recruiter and employment agency by doing things halfway. Systems Personnel places the best talent in information technology, accounting & finance and healthcare IT with top employers who need workers immediately. And they do it all with a personal touch that keeps companies coming back for every project they staff.
The goal at Systems Personnel is to improve the lives of everyone they work with. To their team, success means that candidates find fulfilling employment that furthers their career goals; managers save time and resources while driving their projects to completion; businesses connect with the people they need to grow. It all starts with finding the right people for the job.
At the core of this agency is their ideal of selflessness and the belief that “we have to give back to the community before we give to ourselves. “ That is what drives them to do volunteer work in the community and strive to make a difference in as many ways as they can.
About three years ago, Jim Cipriani, President of Systems Personnel, was participating in a United Way of Buffalo & Erie County strategic planning session on the topic of driving mission. Systems Personnel’s mission of “empowering lives through employment” is so similar to Goodwill’s that it was suggested the two organizations meet to consider a possible partnership. Systems Personnel had begun an initiative called “Friends and Family” that provided job coaching, counseling and interview preparation at no cost for recent college graduates and others by referral. Since Goodwill’s workforce development staff worked with Goodwill clients in the same way, it seemed to be a natural fit for an outside organization to volunteer at Goodwill conducting mock interviews with clients.
The Systems Personnel staff was “not really prepared” for what they were going to experience with Goodwill’s clients who have multiple barriers to employment, and it wasn’t always easy. They continued to volunteer at Goodwill and took the time to assess Goodwill’ clients’ needs and developed a fundamental mock counseling approach that tackles basic interviewing skills. Craig Savage spearheaded the effort on behalf of Systems Personnel and regularly brought other staff members with him, and “everyone who went with him found it rewarding”. What began as mock interviewing became job coaching and mentoring, using what they refer to as the “under the wing approach”, to achieve a goal of job search success.
Everyone at Systems Personnel celebrates when a Goodwill client lands a job. Cipriani recalled a particular Goodwill client who was having a very difficult time finding a job. When that client landed a job and left a voicemail for the Systems Personnel staff member who had helped them it was played for the entire office to hear and “everyone got goosebumps”.
Goodwill appreciates the time and talent the dedicated Systems Personnel team shares with our clients and staff on a regular basis. They truly are making a difference.