A click on the diocesan career link on Sept 8 found only one opening: teacher’s aide at St. Theresa School, Kekaha.
If you are a layperson who wants to work for the church, the diocese has just simplified things for you.
Whether you’re seeking employment as a school principal or a parish secretary, there is now one place to go online were you can see what jobs are available statewide, fill out an application, send in your resume, and sit tight for a response. And you will get a response.
It’s www.catholichawaii.org/about-us/careers.
The online site, which opened on Sept. 8, posts job openings for Hawaii’s 66 parishes, 32 parish schools and 20 central offices.
It does not cover religious orders, or the schools they run such as Saint Louis or Sacred Hearts Academy. It also does not cover Catholic non-profit agencies like Catholic Charities Hawaii or the St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii.
The way it works, said Dara Perreira, director of the diocesan Human Resources Office, the parish, school or department looking to hire someone sends her office a half-page “requisition form” that describes in basic terms the position it needs to fill.
Human Resources then posts the job opening on its recruitment page on the diocesan website.
A person looking for work will find on the site job listings by categories. To apply for a job, the applicant fills out a personal profile form and, if required, attaches a resume. The applicant’s “electronic signature” is verification holding the person legally accountable that the information he or she has provided is true.
The site lists all church jobs that draw a salary, including teachers, pastoral administrators, music ministers, housekeepers, cafeteria workers, maintenance persons and directors of religious education. The diocese employs around 1,400 lay employees.
Jobs are normally posted for two weeks after which the system will automatically take it down.
When applying for employment, job seekers create a personal profile that is filed electronically with the diocese. This eliminates the need to fill out a new form each time a person wants to apply for a job.
“A person can create a profile even if he or she is not actively looking for employment,” said Perreira, just in case a job opportunity comes up in the future. And candidates can choose to receive email notifications when new job openings appear.
All job applications and resumes are sent to the parish, school or department doing the actual hiring. It reviews the applicants and follows up with its own interviewing process.
An offer of employment is followed by a background check which the applicant has to clear before being put on the church payroll.
Perreira said the new system will help to ensure that applicants are treated fairly and respectfully.
“Do we want to be one of the best employers?” she said. “Yes.”
The new system is online only. All applications must be done at the diocesan website. According to Perreira, this is not usually a problem because even people without computers would have access to the Internet through family members, the public library or other facilities. She called a paper application the work-around “last resort,” and even then the information received must eventually be entered into the computer system.
The job posting system is part of a new centralized diocesan payroll system that was put in place over the summer. By the end of August, the diocesan Human Resources office went from processing paychecks for 250 church employees to more than 1,000 church employees in parishes, schools and offices across the state.
The HR office is now the hub through which all timesheets are submitted, paychecks distributed, employee data updated and inquiries about benefits answered.
The HR department will eventually offer parishes and other hiring locations help in improving interviewing and hiring procedures which are often made complicated by government regulations.
