Georgia Work Ready

For Job Seekers
For Employers

www.gaworkready.org

For Job Seekers

What is Georgia Work Ready?

Georgia Work Ready was created to ensure that Georgia's workers have the best skills, easy access to training and world-class job opportunities. The backbone of the initiative is the Work Ready Certificate, which assesses the real world skills of Georgia's workers. Georgians can use their Work Ready Certificate to prove their work readiness to potential employers. Georgia also offers gap training aimed at helping to improve Certificate scores, enabling career growth and continued on-the-job success. This, combined with an innovative job profiling process that accurately identifies the exact skills required for specific jobs is helping create the perfect match between Georgia workers and jobs.

Benefits of Work Ready

Earning a Work Ready Certificate can be your ticket to the job you've always wanted. And it's free and easy to access. The Certificate verifies your work readiness skill level to potential employers and demonstrates your commitment to success. If you want to improve your skills, Georgia also offers free and easy-to-access training programs. All of this adds up to a competitive advantage, better job opportunities and a brighter future.
Additional benefits include:

Confidence that core skills and work habits meet the needs of local employers
Ranking above other job applicants lacking a Work Ready Certificate
Better understanding of employers' requirements for job performance
Determining skill improvements and training opportunities
Realizing opportunities for career advancement and promotions
Demonstrating on your resume an understanding of the skills employers want

How do I Get Certified?

The Work Ready assessment is administered by ACT's nationally accredited WorkKeys® system and measures both core skills and work habits. Core skills assessments measure skills in applied mathematics, reading for information and locating information, three skills that are highly important to the majority of jobs in the workplace. The work habits assessment measures work-related attitudes and behaviors in areas that are trainable and coachable, such as carefulness, cooperation, discipline and drive.

Three simple steps to earning your Work Ready Certificate:

Choose a location: Select your county from the Get Started list on the right to find your nearest assessment center. Call the number provided to schedule your free Work Ready assessment.
Prepare: Review support and instructional materials, along with sample questions, available at no cost to you (see links to right).
Take the assessment: Allot approximately four hours to complete the full assessment and bring a non-graphing calculator for the applied mathematics section. You will receive a copy of your scores at the end of the session; your actual Work Ready Certificate will arrive by mail. Work with your test administrator if you need assistance in assessment-taking computer basics.

Work Ready Certificates are awarded based on the lowest level earned in any of the three core assessment areas, though individual scores in one or more sections may be higher.

Bronze: indicates a minimum score of three in all three core areas
Silver: indicates a minimum score of four in all three areas
Gold: indicates a minimum score of five in all three areas
Platinum: offered only in the state of Georgia, indicates a minimum score of six in all three core areas and signals to employers that you are ready for 95 percent of jobs in the state.

How do I use my Work Ready Certificate?

Bring your Work Ready Certificate with your resume when applying for jobs and provide copies to potential employers to showcase your skills and work habits. More than 175 Georgia companies currently recognize, prefer or require Work Ready Certificates, and the number is growing every day.
More than 400 occupational profiles, listing the basic skill levels needed for job success, are available at the link to the right. Every profile indicates the specific skills needed for each job. You can also use profiles to help determine skill levels required to be considered for a certain job. If you need a higher Work Ready Certificate level for the job you want, take advantage of the state's free skills gap training opportunities. When you present a company with your Work Ready Certificate, the company compares it with the appropriate job profile to make a reliable hiring decision. Companies also use job profiles combined with Work Ready Certificates to determine training needs, promotions and program development.

For Employers

What are the key elements of Work Ready?
Georgia has made a commitment to creating the best-possible environment for business. The unique design of Work Ready provides a thorough understanding of the skills of a company's current workforce, a road map for developing training programs and reliable hiring criteria to ensure they find the best talent for their specific needs.

Work Ready Certificate

Based on ACT's nationally accredited WorkKeys® system, the Work Ready Certificate measures both core skills and work habits. Core skills assessment measures skills in applied mathematics, reading for information and locating information, three skills that are highly important to the majority of jobs in the workplace.
Work habits assessment measures work-related attitudes and behaviors in areas that are trainable and coachable, such as carefulness, cooperation, discipline and drive.
Most of the state's technical colleges offer additional assessments based on companies' needs for a small fee. These assessments include applied technology, business writing, listening, observation and teamwork. Employers can easily verify an applicant or employee's Work Ready Certificate through the link to the right. You will be prompted to input the Work Ready Certificate number provided by the individual.

Job Profiling

Designed to help Georgia employers build the right workforces, Work Ready job profiling allows companies to work with an authorized job profiler to identify the required job tasks and skill levels for each position. By comparing job profiles with individuals' Work Ready Certificates, companies can make reliable decisions about hiring, training and program development. Normally a $2,000 value, profiling is conducted at no cost for employers that meet minimum hiring criteria.

Businesses of any size can take advantage of Work Ready to improve their hiring processes. While larger companies should have a job profile completed before listing the Work Ready Certificate as a part of their hiring criteria; small companies can use occupational profiles (available via the link to the right) and request job candidates complete the Work Ready assessment as part of the job application process.

What Does Georgia Work Ready Mean for Business?

To successfully compete in a global economy, companies must have access to long-term, qualified labor pools. Georgia Work Ready was designed to build the nation's best workforce and ensure Georgia companies have the talent they need to stay ahead of the competition.

Benefits of Work Ready

Georgia Work Ready can help you hire the best people and boost your bottom line. It's available at no cost for companies meeting minimum hiring requirements and is easy to access through the state's network of technical colleges. Georgia companies can implement Work Ready two ways - through job profiling and Work Ready Certificates. Work Ready job profiles identify the job tasks and skill levels necessary to be successful in any job. Companies match those profiles to employees' Work Ready Certificates - which measure core skills - to ensure the right person is placed in the right job every time.

Companies implementing Work Ready make an investment of their employees' time to develop strong job profiles. This initial investment can reap great rewards for years to come including:

Improved hiring procedures
Reduced turnover
Reduced training costs
Increased productivity and profitability
High employee morale

In fact, a recent survey among companies that are using Work Ready found that 90 percent would recommend the initiative to others and 78 percent said that Work Ready helps them "find higher quality employees."

Overview of Certified Work Ready Community Initiative

As part of Georgia’s Work Ready initiative, counties throughout the state have made a commitment to earn Certified Work Ready Community status, a designation showing they have the talented workforce that business demands and the means to drive economic growth and prosperity.

Earning Certified Work Ready Community status ensures citizens have the talent necessary to staff existing jobs and to master the innovative technologies new jobs will require in the future. By taking part in the effort, Georgia counties are transforming their economies and giving themselves a competitive advantage in attracting new businesses and jobs.

To be designated a Certified Work Ready Community, counties must drive current workers and the available workforce to earn Work Ready Certificates, demonstrate a commitment to improving public high school graduation rates and build community commitment for meeting these goals. Each community has created a team of economic development, government and education partners to meet the certification criteria. Counties are given three years to reach the goals necessary to become a Certified Work Ready Community. Those counties willing to complete the process in 18 months are eligible for state-funded grants and serve as models for the initiative, showcasing successes and best practices for others to follow.