Solar Landscape’s Training Program Leverages Critical Collaboration Tools With CareerEquity:

Improving Efficiencies in Collecting and Reporting Program Results and Enhancing Candidate Development

“Working with the CareerEquity team has been phenomenal. Everyone is extremely responsive, committed to our success, and has helped us not only build the platform in a way that works for our model but actually helped us with employer engagement and outreach – setting up meetings with companies that might be interested in hiring our students and trainees. And that makes an enormous difference.”
– Sarah Pidgeon, Executive Director of Workforce Development, Solar Landscape

BEFORE

Solar Landscape’s STEP-UP (Solar Training and Education Partnerships for Underserved Populations) program is building the energy workforce of the future. The job training program has prepared 900+ people for solar installation careers.

But its growing list of employer and workforce development partners proved to be a major challenge. That’s because tracking their success required a huge amount of staff time – for both STEP-UP and its partners.

DURING

To help streamline data collection and analysis, improve partner engagement, and provide responsive support to its trainees as they unlock career opportunities in the solar industry – STEP-UP partnered with CareerEquity.

CareerEquity provided hands on training on using the platform for the STEP-UP team and its partners, including its:

  • Built-in collaboration tools that simplify how career development specialists keep trainees’ data up-to-date
  • Automatic notifications that communicate trainees’ milestones reached and support needed to all partners
  • Customizable reporting tools to track future job placements and report program outcomes to funders and partners

With CareerEquity’s user friendly platform, trainees can also build their own career profiles, reducing the administrative burden on training and employment partners. When they are hired, receive new employer-based training, or are promoted, their information is saved on the platform, improving STEP UP’s long-term program evaluation and enhancing candidate development.

“One nice thing about CareerEquity is its hands-on approach... beyond just the user-friendly setup of the platform, we got a lot of face time and expertise from the team working with us one-on one to set it up, to make it work for us, to troubleshoot any challenges that we have, and to help get our partner organizations trained to use the system. And that sort of human approach combined with the technology, is also really helpful.”

AFTER

Today, STEP-UP and its partners view and update program data in the CareerEquity platform in real time, helping them serve as better advocates for job seekers. When STEP-UP receives a notification that a trainee has applied for a job, they can take action immediately, follow up with the employer, and ensure the recruiting team knows that their latest job applicant has been trained on solar installation by the leading commercial and community solar developer in the U.S.

Within one user-friendly ecosystem, CareerEquity is helping STEP-UP:

  • Simplify job searching for trainees by filtering opportunities by skills and certifications
  • Improve how it collects and uses program data
  • Enhance partner communication and collaboration
  • Reduce administrative burdens on its team members and employer partners
  • Strengthen reporting and compliance for all partners

With fewer meetings, emails, and phone calls needed between partners, STEP-UP’s time is better spent providing direct support to its trainees, connecting with more employers, and increasing the number of rewarding career opportunities available to program graduates.

“CareerEquity is a workforce platform that’s actually designed for the workforce, and it brings together a lot of disparate pieces of the workforce ecosystem.”