When Kim Slaton’s paternal grandfather came to Cincinnati after World War II, he was a man in need.
An Eastern European Holocaust survivor, he was starting a new life and raising a family. To do so, he needed work.
That’s where the Jewish Vocational Service came in. They helped Slaton’s grandfather find work as a meat cutter at a pork plant — perhaps an odd setup for an Orthodox Jew, but a jumping off point to later work at Oscherwitz, a kosher meat packing company in Cincinnati.
“I think about my grandfather, who, it was all about just being able to put a roof over his kids’ heads and feed them…and he got such pleasure out of that,” Slaton said.
It’s a guiding story for Slaton, who, in a historical role reversal, has spent the past 20 years working at JVS Careers, the current iteration of the historic Jewish Vocational Service.
She’s helped others, from Cincinnati locals to transplants to new immigrants, find work.
“I remind the team in the office, we’re transforming lives,” Slaton said. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re a career coach helping people find their competitive edge. But really, what are you doing? You’re helping people to transform their lives through employment. And I truly, truly believe that.”
Earlier this year, Slaton became the new executive director at JVS Careers. It’s a formative time as the organization marks its 85th anniversary and begins a strategic planning process to figure out its next chapter.
There’s a lot to decide in a world where artificial intelligence, economic uncertainty, and a post-pandemic haze has upended what it means to find and do work.
But one thing stays consistent.
“JVS Careers is a Jewish institution that serves everyone,” Slaton said.
“That is inherently what makes us a Jewish organization: That we follow the Jewish moral and ethical imperative of helping people to be self-sustaining — to strengthen the hand of another — which is the highest level of tzedakah (charity),” she said.
In 2024 alone, JVS Careers helped 392 people with various careers services, with 187 new jobs being started (some people may have started more than one job).
Roughly $213,000 was awarded to 56 students for career services and educational advancement. The organization also runs the well-known Workum Summer Internship program, which places students at Jewish organizations.
Slaton sees her and JVS Careers’ work as essential to the Cincinnati Jewish community.
“There’s only one way to keep a Jewish community vibrant, and that’s through jobs — people having a livelihood, being able to participate, [and] give back,” she said.
A success story
In another world, Slaton might not have worked in the Jewish community, let alone been part of the community at all.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, her father was Jewish, but not her mother. “So I really consider myself a Jewish success story, because it wasn’t easy,” she said.
No congregation would let her interfaith family join, except for Wise Temple. Importantly, Wise also gave Slaton a scholarship to Jewish summer camp at the Goldman Union Camp Institute (GUCI).
“My role models were these really passionate young rabbis that were there at camp,” she said.
But it was her mother’s effort that led to a lasting relationship with the Cincinnati Jewish community.
She “really was the driving force about me staying involved and connected to my Judaism,” Slaton said. “To her credit — all of her relatives, they were ministers and preachers. And here she was really making an effort to get me to Sunday school.”
Slaton ended up marrying a rabbi, and fully embodied the role of the rabbi’s wife as she helped with congregational life and counseling members.
Over time, Slaton found other work in the Jewish community, too. She had stints at the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky; the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati; and as the development director at Cincinnati Hillel.
By 2005, Slaton was ready to retire.
Then a friend told her there was a part-time career coach opening at the Jewish Vocational Service. Retirement didn’t stand a chance.
Twenty years later, reflecting on her second career, it makes sense to Slaton that she found herself at JVS Careers.
“I did not grow up privileged. Both parents worked…and my grandparents also worked,” she said.
“A lot of that, I think, laid the foundation for my career: helping people with employment, [and to understand] the honor and dignity that comes with that paycheck and the hope and promise of being able to care for your family through that,” she said.
Weathering changes and planning for the future
JVS Careers is in a unique position.
Unlike many other counterparts in the Jewish world, JVS careers is not attached to a Jewish Family Service organization. It also doesn’t do much outright low income and disabilities social service work since 2012, when that part of JVS combined with Easterseals Redwood.
At that time, JVS Careers spun off as its own endeavor with around three employees. Today, it’s grown to eight full-time employees and another four or so part-time staff.
Much of that growth has been centered on the idea of JVS Careers as a recruitment firm.
“Employers would come to us and say, do you have this kind of talent? And we would say, yes, they’d land the job, we would get revenue for finding their talent and get our candidates in the door with hiring managers,” Slaton said.
The recruitment firm was something Slaton thought of when reflecting on the Great Recession. During the mass layoffs of that period, JVS suddenly went from career coaching and helping people find entry-level work, to helping executives and other experienced workers avoid poverty.
“That was a pivotal point [where] I saw an opportunity for where this organization could go and who its target population would be,” Slaton said.
Under former executive director Joni Burton, the recruitment firm became a success — until the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the workforce and people’s needs.
“More job seekers were coming to us for assistance, which speaks to the mission side of JVS Careers,” Slaton said.
But companies, scaling back hiring during the pandemic, weren’t reaching out as much to find experienced workers. “That recruiting firm revenue wasn’t being as impactful to our budget as in the past, and we weren’t seeing the kind of business that we had previously seen.”
Finding that balance, between mission and social enterprise, career coaching and active recruitment work, is a defining feature of JVS Careers’ new strategic planning process.
“I’d really like for us to gain clarity on the mission work that we provide to our community and job seekers, versus the revenue side of what we do and what those expectations are from our community, funders, and stakeholders,” Slaton said.
Staying relevant in a rapidly changing time for the workplace is also top of mind. New developments like artificial intelligence are making workers feel vulnerable, some of whom are proactively reaching out to JVS Careers for help.
“Used to be, we would say, looking for a job today, as opposed to 10 years ago, is very different,” Slaton said. “And now we’re saying, looking for a job six months ago is very different than it is now. So that’s our challenge.”
Still, Slaton thinks JVS Careers can succeed — and become an even more integral part of managing a career in Cincinnati.
“I have this vision of people coming to Cincinnati and getting in the Uber and saying, ‘I’d really like to move to Cincinnati, but I need a job,’” Slaton said.
“And that Uber driver would say, “Well, you need to reach out to JVS Careers,’” she said. “I’d like for people to really trust and value this organization so much they would never want to see it disappear.”