More than 500 job seekers attended the 12th annual Huntsville Job Fair looking for full-time, part-time and summer employment. What they found were 52 employers eager to fill vacancies, some following up with applicants the same day.
“We were really pleased,” said Mary Ellen Fetterly, Job Developer at the YMCA Employment Centre. “There was a really great cross-section of industries represented: health care, construction, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, communications, landscapers, and training providers as well as an alternative for job seekers. Sometimes they need training, as an example to be a PSW, so having combination of both employers and trainers there is helpful so that people can see what their next steps might be.”
A job coach was available in The Coaching Corner to provide job seekers with free job search tips, too.
The feedback from employers was positive, said Fetterly – it was a great time of year to help them find employees for the coming months and they collected lots of resumes.
Some of those job seekers were students from Huntsville High School. HHS careers teacher Dave Armstrong took his grade 10 class to the fair – something he does every year – and says it was a positive experience for them.
“We do a lot of work in careers on resume preparation, cover letters and job interview techniques,” says Armstrong. “This is a great opportunity for them to meet a large number of employers from our community and to demonstrate some of the skills that they are learning with us, especially for a lot of our kids who are entering their first job experience.” He noted that about 40 per cent of the class has had at least one part-time job in the past.
The students appreciated that employers had notices on their tables if they were open to hiring students. “It made approaching businesses a lot easier. It was a very positive experience and the kids couldn’t stop talking about it when they came back from the fair.”
Whether you’re a student or an older job seeker, if you missed the fair Fetterly suggests stopping in at the YMCA Employment Services office on King William Street to pick up a list of the employers who were there. “We encourage people to see who the exhibitors were and reach out to them to see what positions are available.”
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Wonderful!! Wonderful!! Great positive activity to continue help the growth of the great town of Huntsville.