A cold wind was whipping fast-food napkins against the chain link fence surrounding the Boston headquarters of Strive last March as a new class of job training students dribbled into the building. Among them was an unemployed janitor, three or four men in jackets and ties, a crowd of single mothers, a homesick Jamaican immigrant and a veteran of job training courses who's adding another entry to her resume. Most had come because the word on the street is that Strive works. Hundreds of other programs focus on teaching the unemployed to answer phones or operate a computer or hunt for work. What Strive teaches is how to act.
Skills can come later.
The program offers help not just in finding jobs, but also in keeping them. And unlike scores of other job training programs, Strive accepts no government money, receiving funding instead from private foundations. As a result, it can be choosy about the standards it sets, and ruthless in their application. But he tells the students they better do their part. If this were a job interview, it would be over.