Goodwill Industries International (GII) recently debuted its redesigned website to better serve online job seekers searching for new skills training and career opportunities. The revamped website has seen a 20% increase in year-over-year web traffic since it went live in mid-December, with a daily average of 500 job seekers from across the country connecting to their local Goodwill career centers.
At the start of the new year, 96% of workers were planning to seek new positions in 2023. Job seeking and career exploration can often begin with an online search; that’s why Goodwill.org is easily found via search engines and connects people with career navigation and skills building resources. The impact of the resources available on Goodwill.org is optimized when job seekers also access local Goodwill career coach and navigator services.
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The redesigned site was constructed with the help of a Google.org Fellowship, which provided 10 Google employees who worked on a pro bono basis with GII to better understand how job seekers and career advancers could use the site to connect with local Goodwill career centers, build skills and earn employment.
In addition to the redesign, the Google.org fellows produced a job-seeker focused website template that can be used by local Goodwill organizations to connect directly with their community members who are seeking to learn new skills and advance their professional aspirations. There are 155 local Goodwill organizations across the U.S. and Canada that can benefit from deploying this template. This work aligns with GII’s strategic initiative to ensure everyone has an opportunity to thrive.
“People come to Goodwill to seize their opportunity to thrive. Part of our mission is to connect people with education, skills training and other resources that will equip them for employment and career advancement,” said Wendi Copeland, GII’s chief partnership officer. “Millions of people come to Goodwill websites every year; the sites must be easy to navigate with clear pathways to the resources people need. The Google.org fellows helped us provide a better starting point for people ready to build better lives with great career paths.”
With the technical expertise provided by Google.org fellows and an in-kind contribution of Google Ads, the job-seeker-focused design of Goodwill.org is connecting more people to the skills and opportunities they need to earn jobs and advance in their careers. With improved user experience and increased web traffic, GII looks forward to better serving job seekers and career advancers, as well as the shoppers, donors, partners and other stakeholders who help fund the Goodwill mission.
“We know that many people’s search for new skills or career opportunities start online,” said Gabriel Doss, program manager for the Google.org Fellowship program. “Goodwill has a proven track record of helping people navigate the challenges of today’s job market, and we’re so proud that Google employees, through the Google.org Fellowship program, were able to lend their expertise to help build a website that even better serves people’s needs.”
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The support provided by Google.org fellows for GII’s website improvements builds on long-term support that Google has provided to GII and local Goodwill organizations. Since 2017, Google has enabled Goodwill to bring digital skills to local communities and help people get good jobs that don’t require degrees through certification programs, including the Google Career Certificates. In addition to funding, Google.org has also provided Google Ads grants to GII and local Goodwill organizations across North America to help Google users find the resources they need more easily. With the tech company’s assistance, the Goodwill network has delivered digital skills training to more than 1.5 million Americans, and it has helped place more than 357,000 Americans in digital economy jobs.
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