ABOUT US

We connect great talent to great jobs

We fill your needs and you fuel our mission.

As a social enterprise of Cara Collective, Cara Connects is more than a staffing agency firm, it’s a new beginning. It’s a reconnection to work which can often lead to a reconnection to self because nothing gives you a positive outlook on life like the power of a job.

The Cara
Connects Story

2013

As we could feel the weight of the job market shifting beneath us in the throes of the still-lingering recession, we realized employers had to be nimble with their resources while having the ability to ramp up and down with the ebbs and flows of the market. We too had to be nimble and expand our reach to integrate the many talented people throughout our city that sat on the sidelines of the mainstream workforce and were now looking to jump back in. And with that, Cara Connects launched in 2013 to connect quality talent with quality jobs.

2015

We receive the Social Innovator Award at the 2015 Chicago Innovation Awards. This honor helped validate the work and mission of Cara Connects while further propelling our reach and impact in our infancy as a business.

2018

We launch a co-location with our friends at Northwest Center, a non-profit organization that offers housing counseling, financial coaching, and business development support. In this partnership, we are able to provide resource support and employment opportunities directly to hundreds of residents of the Belmont-Cragin community each year.

2019

Thanks to a grant from UnidosUS and Verizon Wireless, Northwest Center and Cara Connects started a Latinos @ Work program named Adelante, the Spanish word for “Forward”. The program focuses on teaching job seekers in the Belmont Cragin community how to competitively enter the workforce with digital skills that lead to gainful employment.

2019

We celebrate our 1,000th Cara Connects assignment.

2020

We partner with the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, Governor JB Pritzker, and Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity on an $8 million investment to expand job opportunities for residents in Chicago and Cook County who have become unemployed as a result of or during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this, we worked with The Partnership to place, train, and hire nearly displaced residents for an array of jobs in assisting with local disaster relief programs and in-demand industries connected to the ongoing COVID crisis.