WE’RE ON A MISSION

Breaking barriers, building futures:

Driving economic mobility through skills-first hiring.

Our Mission

YUPRO Placement, formerly known as ‘YUPRO’ and Year Up Professional Resources, PBC, was established in 2014 by Gerald Chertavian, the founder of the nonprofit Year Up United. As a Public Benefit Corporation, we support skills-based job placement and career advancement of those facing barriers to socioeconomic mobility due to lack of access to resources, opportunity, and experience.

We serve historically excluded communities to build a more diverse and equitable workforce that provides access for all to progress from lower to higher-wage jobs resulting in real economic mobility.  And we believe that skills-based hiring is the answer.  Hiring for skills, abilities and potential creates equitable job opportunities for all. 

We are committed to dismantling systemic hiring barriers in the employment process and championing inclusive, equitable hiring practices.

Join us in shaping a world of equal access and endless possibilities.

How we help historically excluded talent build the careers they want with the support they deserve.

Skills-first champion

We connect candidates with employers by matching their skill sets with the specific requirements of the role. This strategy benefits employers by tapping into overlooked yet highly skilled talent while candidates gain equitable access to good jobs.

Professional Apprenticeships

Our Skills-to-StaffTM Professional Apprenticeship offers our talent from historically excluded communities the opportunity for career advancement and skill development in high-demand positions.

Coaching & support services

Our commitment goes beyond job placements. We provide comprehensive support and coaching to all our talent, both before and after placement, to ensure job success and career advancement.

Diverse and untapped talent community

We connect employers with our proprietary nationwide talent marketplace, consisting of 180k+ motivated and skilled jobseekers from historically excluded communities.

The YUPRO Placement difference.

25%

 higher average hourly wages than the U.S. BLS average

11 months

Average tenure on a contract assignment compared to the industry average of 10 weeks

Transforming lives.

Brudjah

“Being an apprentice is one of the best ways to learn. Through [my] apprenticeship, I know that having my foot in the corporate door will open more opportunities and allow me to help others break through barriers. I also got the unconditional support of Year Up & YUPRO Placement [and] will forever be grateful for their willingness to help young adults like me.”

Rada

“I had a zero experience in Project Management, but knew that apprenticeship [was] an amazing opportunity to gain experience in any field. It was also a great opportunity to present myself as someone who was willing to learn . . .which further led to [obtaining] a full-time role.”

Kwame

The skills I’ve developed working here can be applied to take me almost anywhere—from the leadership skills that strengthened my interpersonal abilities—to newfound technical skills and an understanding of how to take a website or mobile application from beginning to end in the software development life cycle. This apprenticeship has provided me with tremendous value and momentum toward my goal of becoming a software engineer. 

Extending our positive impact.

As a Public Benefit Corporation, our mission-driven business plan prioritizes stakeholders, values, and impact alongside profitability. We consider the broader social implications of our actions and seek to benefit all involved parties. Here are just a few of the ways in which we continuously seek to further extend our positive impact beyond our immediate mission.

Give back to our non-profit partners.

With every placement, we donate a percentage of our placement proceeds to support the missions of our non-profit training provider partners.

Partner with findhelp.org.

We partner with findhelp.org to help our talent community access 875+ free and reduced-cost resources for transit, housing, food, legal, health, and much more.

Minority, women-owned and B-Corp vendors.

We purposefully seek out diverse vendors to meet our needs as an organization, such as Symba, PrideOne, AdeptID and FindHelp.

Partner with 501c3 Grateful.

We partner with Grateful to amplify its positive impact and have extended charitable giving cards to employees, clients, and partners. To date, we have supported 250+ non-profits through this initiative.

Our sustainable development goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

YUPRO Placement, and our parent company Year Up United, together work toward supporting the following eight sustainable development goals (SDGs) as defined by the UN. 

  • Eradicate poverty in all its forms
  • Ensure good health and well-being for all
  • Achieve inclusive and quality education for all
  • End all discrimination against women and girls
  • Achieve full and productive employment, and decent work, for all women and men
  • Promote sustainable industries, and invest in research and innovation
  • Empower lower-income earners, and promote economic inclusion of all regardless of sex, race or ethnicity
  • Aim to significantly reduce all forms of violence, and work with governments and communities to end conflict and insecurity

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

About Year Up United.

Year Up United is a national workforce development organization committed to expanding access to economic opportunity for all young adults by providing business and talent solutions to reshape the world of work. We envision a future where everyone has equal opportunity to achieve their full potential, and we know it will take multiple approaches to realize this vision. For nearly 25 years, we have catalyzed change in the talent and business landscape, delivering comprehensive solutions that drive material impact on lives, companies, and communities. Our work is not done. United, we will end the Opportunity Divide for good. To learn more, visit https://www.yearupunited.org

How can we help your organization?

Reach out to us and discover how our cutting-edge and unconventional staffing solutions can assist your organization in bridging skill gaps and fulfilling hiring needs.

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