WEIRTON, W.Va. — Residents in two West Virginia cities and their surrounding areas will get a chance to “Grow with Google.”
Representatives from Google will be in Weirton on Wednesday and Huntington on Friday as part of their nationwide campaign to help create economic opportunity by teaching digital skills.
Katherine Williams, Public Affairs Manager at Google spoke with MetroNews about “Grow with Google” and the company’s outreach that began in October 2017.
“We realize we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to help Americans get a grip on the digital skills they need to land the jobs they want, advance their careers and grow local businesses,” she said.
The campaign has been in the Mountain State before with a stop in July of 2018 in Charleston. This time around Google is partnering with local libraries to create a skilled workforce of the future in the state.
The event in Weirton on July 31 will be from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Mary H. Weir Public Library while the event in Huntington on August 2 is from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Cabell County Public Library.
Williams said one of the main target audiences for these events is job seekers and students. The event teaches someone how to use Google Docs, put together a resume with a variety of different templates, how to track a job search using a spreadsheet or the best way to tailor your resume and put forward some information on the technical certifications that you have.
“Grow with Google” is also for businesses, just getting started and veteran ones. The workshops teach how to maximize a business’ web presence and understanding web traffic with ads and analytics.
Other audiences that have utilized the workshops have been veteran and military families, teachers, and developers.
Williams said it is a “we can so we should” initiative.
“What better way to do that than to bring real people who interact with this technology every day at Google to the community and to our users who are already using Google Maps, who are already using Google Search, who really probably know a lot more than they think they do,” she said.
Williams also said there personal one-on-one opportunities with Google volunteers from around the country. An expert can host an individual for 20 minutes to teach Gsuite, Gmail or Google Docs, or Ads.
She suggests ones interested to pre-register with the “Grow with Google” events but pre-registration is not necessary with the one-on-one events.
“Grow with Google” is headed to all 50 states with West Virginia is the 18th state holding the events.