It's time for job seekers in Chatham-Kent to start polishing their resumes for the CK Works! Community Job Fair next month.
The Chatham-Kent Workforce Planning Board and the Chatham-Kent Employment Resource Centre are hosting the job fair at the John D. Bradley Centre on October 11 from 2pm to 7pm. Job applicants are asked to bring a resume. Employers must register online before September 29 at 4:30pm. Spaces are limited and on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Every year, the Chatham-Kent Workforce Planning Board consults local employers on the challenges they face within their workplace through the EmployerOne Survey. This year's survey results show that 37% of employers in Chatham-Kent had at least one position in 2016 that they were unable to fill. According to the survey results, the number one reason the employers could not fill these positions was because they didn't get enough applicants.
"I think that a lot of people maybe aren't getting connected to those online job applications or postings that are coming out, they're relying on some old-school traditional methods to do that," says Kristy Jacobs, who is the project manager for the Chatham-Kent Workforce Planning Board.
Jacobs says the board asked employers in the same survey if they'd be interested in participating in a community job fair.
"Employers came back and said oh heck yeah we would love to do that! The more traffic you get the better it is and the more candidates that come through... We had a lot of success with the youth job fair that we did in June, so we kind of copied that model and expanded it a bit," says Jacobs.
Jacobs says starting on Wednesday, they'll be posting an updated list of employers who have signed up so far on their Facebook page. She says CK Works! is getting a good diverse crowd of employers signing up so far.
She says that while it's hard to give a snapshot of the employment landscape in Chatham-Kent, she thinks the job situation "is in pretty good shape right now."
"I went out with my daughter on the weekend and I think every other store front we hit had a sign in the window that said we're hiring right now. Those are some of the untapped job markets that aren't necessarily advertised, they're posted on a sign" she says.
Jacobs explains that Chatham-Kent may not have the big, high paying companies like other cities and regions, but the municipality does have good career building jobs in many different sectors for various skill levels. She says "it's all about knowing what you're looking for and having the skills aligned to what the employer is looking for."