Opportunity Youth Initiatives Career Series Sets Students Up for Success

November 20, 2024

To jumpstart and streamline connections between Delgado students and New Orleans area employers, Delgado’s Opportunity Youth Initiative (OYI) presents a four-part career series—Find the Job of your Dreams—over the 2024-2025 academic year. Each session is led by two human resource leaders, one representing hospitality and another representing healthcare, and includes a free lunch. Additionally, each session is filmed and posted to the Delgado website for viewing by anyone unable to attend.

The sessions pivot around the entirety of the job search process, from where to look, to how to start work in the best way possible: 

• Job Search 101: How to Successfully Look for Jobs, led by Tara Minamoto of The Windsor Court and Johnette Arendt of Crescent Care (October 2024)
• Writing a Resume and Cover Letter that will Land the Job 101, led by Denelle Warner and Will Takewell of LCMC Health and Shaysa Lewis of The Windsor Court (October 2024)
• How to Ace the Interview and Win the Role, led by Susan Salomone of Ochsner Health and Tom Jones of Sheraton Hotels—February 4, 2025
• How to start your job with Confidence and Momentum, led by Missy Sparks of Ochsner Health and Kim LeDuff of The National WW2 Museum—March 25, 2025

All Delgado students and their families and friends along with Delgado faculty and staff are invited to attend. Attendance at the first two sessions has topped 80 students. 

Funded by the Conrad Hilton Foundation, Delgado’s OYI mentorship and scholarship program supports young people in hospitality management, culinary, business, nursing, and allied health majors, with a myriad of wraparound services geared to keeping students in school through graduation and achieving academic success. Program resources include an individual mentor; access to emergency grants to counter housing, legal, transportation, and other obstacles that are common drop-out drivers; assistance with finding childcare and housing; transportation and food access; free tutoring; free time management and study skills coaching; and a loaner laptop and hotspot. 

Each semester, OYI runs a variety of workshops on topics that benefit all Delgado students, including personal finance management, domestic violence prevention, and metacognitive learning. The Find the Job of your Dreams series is a particular win-win, both educating students on the job search process so they can best leverage their degrees and helping employers access over 12,000 prepared Delgado students who comprise the future workforce of New Orleans and beyond.