Farler sits in the training area at the Teleworks USA Beattyville Teleworks Hub, a place she has become well acquainted with in the last year since switching from the long haul of her previous employer.
Lee County resident, Amanda Farler
“Before I’d heard of Teleworks USA, I was driving 50 miles one way to go to my job. It was just too hard to drive almost 100 miles a day to go to work,” she adds.
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“All I was doing was sleeping and working”
An initiative of the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), Teleworks USA identifies and develops legitimate remote-work job opportunities with multiple national and global companies. Teleworks USA’s team of eight expert Teleworks Hub Managers also help prepare people for the jobs by upskilling them in customer service and technical support workshops, helping them craft strong résumés and hone their interviewing skills, and assisting them in applying for available remote-work positions they can work within their homes or the eight Teleworks Hubs.
In 2016, Farler worked for a call center in a neighboring county. The overheads for gas, maintaining her vehicle, and food, not to mention the added stress of both the job and the commute gave her more than enough reason to start the hunt for a new job.
“I’ve already had one heart attack, so I decided maybe it’s time to do something less stressful and stay closer to home,” Farler adds.
The only problem was that job opportunities close to Farler’s home were scarce, and launching a job search alone can be a daunting task.
“There’s only so many jobs in small rural counties like here in Eastern Kentucky,” Farler says, swiveling in her chair. “It’s hard to find a job.”
Through family and friends, Farler heard of a program that brought a different definition to the words “working” and “job.”
“I just decided to come in to Teleworks and see what companies were hiring,” Farler explains with a shrug of her shoulders.
Farler called in June 2017 and set up an appointment to speak with Teleworks USA Beattyville Hub Manager Tracie Spencer.
“We talked and kind of went over my résumé, fine tuned my résumé, and applied to a couple of different companies,” Farler says. “She helped me going through the process of filling out the paperwork to apply for the jobs.”
Spencer also helped steer Farler in the right direction for the company she would work best with, she says, based on her previous experience working in telecommunications.
Once all her applications were in, Farler says it took only a matter of weeks to be contacted by global telework company Concentrix, go through all the interviews, and find out she was hired. By August—just a month after stepping foot in the Teleworks Hub—she was starting her training class with the company.
Since starting with Concentrix, Farler has been moved onto a more prominent position as a sales representative with a global leader in phone and computer hardware and software.
To find out more information about Teleworks USA, go to TeleworksUSA.com!
Since 2015, Teleworks USA Hubs in Hazard, Hyden, Annville, Beattyville, Booneville, Harlan, Louisa, and Pike County have helped bring jobs to more than 1,800 Eastern Kentuckians, and those positions carry an estimated $40 million in economic impact in new annual wages to teleworkers across the Eastern Kentucky Coalfields.
EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services, administers the Hiring Our Miners Everyday (H.O.M.E.) program for dislocated coal miners and their spouses, and is the White House-designated lead organization for the federal TechHire designation for Eastern Kentucky. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org, http://www.jobsight.org and http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.
