Service Year Alliance (SYA), the national organization that aims to give young Americans a shot at advancing their careers by doing a year of paid, full-time service, is offering a new way for 100 young people working in participating organizations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco to take their professional development to the next level.
Airbnb, LinkedIn, and Starbucks are partnering with SYA for “Service Year 100” to give participants special incentives to boost their career trajectories and assist with their service challenges. That means access to hiring teams, speakers’ series, and local events at each of the companies, as well as extra perks.
Each of the 100 program participants will be issued special challenges throughout their year of service that will help build their leadership skills, promote relationship building, and teach collaboration.
LinkedIn is giving participants premium accounts and challenging them to use it to advance their careers by learning new skills and finding ways to leverage their networks. Starbucks is giving participants gift cards with the idea that they can use the free coffee as “conversation starters” to help them create new relationships.
The 100 participants will be chosen from a larger pool of service workers who are already enrolled in a service year in one of the five Service Year 100 cities. The SYA takes on over 65,000 young workers annually either before, during, or after college. They apply for and get job opportunities at nonprofit organizations or other agencies like CityYear, Habitat for Humanity, Playworks, and Food Corps, among others, that are working to impact a community through revitalization efforts, education and development for children at risk, and other initiatives.
There is no guarantee that they will be hired by any of the three partner companies, but having access to hiring teams will give them an advantage over someone applying without having completed the service year.
But the benefits are meant to outweigh a single job offer. As Joe Gebbia, cofounder and chief product officer of Airbnb puts it: “Service Year 100 allows us to help support their journey as they build trust with strangers and learn to belong anywhere.”