Ellington

All right. I'm here with Neil and Jennifer. thanks for joining me, you guys. Yeah, thanks for having us. Absolutely. We're talking about the spring job fair this morning. I guess we could just start off with, what is the job fair and who puts this event on? Well, is it is it is the biggest job fair in all of northwest Montana.

And it's very much a collaborative effort with a number of organizations here in town. definitely job service Kalispell. and, you know, in, in the lead on that as well as the daily in our lake, Flathead Valley community College and discover Kalispell Chamber and the efforts of workforce Flathead. So we all come together, spring and fall to put on this, meaningful and really big event for the community.

Yeah. One of the big pieces of this is we're trying to meet, the workforce and labor demands here in the Flathead Valley. This week alone, we had 850 jobs, locally posted on our jobs list. So there's a lot of opportunities out there, and we want to provide, job seekers the opportunity to connect with local employers at this event.

And so you might have an opportunity to talk to almost 100 businesses that are hiring locally, which is a really cool opportunity for job seekers. Is it true this is the largest job fair in northwest Montana? It really is. As Neil said, currently we have nearly 100 employers signed up, and we'll still have businesses signing up here through this week.

so it is really just, really a one stop shop, if you will, for anyone who's seeking whether it's full time, part time, weekend night, just any kind of schedule to come in and meet with employers from so many different industries. When is it going to take place and where is the event? So it's going to happen April 11th at the, Kalispell Fairgrounds and the Trade Center.

And it's going to happen kind of in two different time periods. The morning is going to be a student career fair from 930 or from 9 to 1130, where we'll be engaging, businesses will have an opportunity to talk to local high school seniors, juniors and possibly college students about different career options and that are there their local here for for businesses.

And then the afternoon part, there'll be a job fair from 230 to 630. So even if you're, you know, working a job till five, you'll still have an opportunity to possibly come in later in the afternoon and, and still meet with employers to maybe see what other options are. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Is there a fee involved? No, it's completely free for the attendees.

The businesses will have a registration fee. depending on kind of what kind of promotional levels that they're interested in having, with that. But as far as the, you know, the high school, college student, students coming for the career fair and then for job seekers coming in in the afternoon, I yeah, it is a free event.

so it's really just, again, a great opportunity to actively seek a job, have a resume in hand if you'd like. or just gather information. So how can job seekers be prepared to meet some of these potential employers? I know that, so yeah. So at job service, if you come to our job service, office, locally here in Kalispell, we can help, job seekers prepare for the job fair in a lot of different ways.

We can help you polish up a resume if you haven't done that in a while and maybe reformat it. we can talk to you about, different employers that are going to be at the job fair and kind of research those employers and so you're prepared to engage them to your best. And, and, you know, we can even help you with tips to kind of what to say, how to address, you know, we encourage folks to to come professionally ready to, to talk to employers.

You know, you might have an opportunity to, to land a really good job. And so and we have heard those stories in the past where, you know, someone came with a resume, they they dressed professionally. They went and shook some hands and landed a really good job locally. So those those stories do happen. Yeah. How can employers be prepared to meet some of these job seekers?

Yes, I have, I have that one too. so we encourage there's actually even a prize for building the best booth at job fair. And so if you are an employer that really puts a lot of time into your booth, you can, they'll be kind of judged and, they'll be a prize for the best, most engaging, most creative booth for for the businesses at the job fair.

and, and we really encourage, the businesses to create a welcoming and engaging area, you know, that they're going to use so that people feel comfortable to come up and engage them and talk to them about, different opportunities. a lot of businesses will have cool swag, pens, hats like, this is pen from the job fair last year.

you know, and and we really want them to, you know, not just sit behind their, their booth and their, you know, in a chair to, to really get out and engage the public, you know, that's what we're kind of looking for, you know, in the morning, really engage the students in the afternoon, engage with people who are seeking jobs and that are curious about different opportunities.

You know, one one good technique is to always stand kind of in front of your booth and, you know, really welcome people up to to have that conversation. I, I echo, what Neil said it really that I guess as far as the competition goes. Part of that is also not just the physical, but that personal engagement.

And, I think Neil hit it on the head when he said about standing in front of your table. Right. There's always but that table sometimes can be a little bit of a barrier. and it just makes it that much easier for folks to have a conversation. or maybe not just walk straight past, when somebody's standing out in front and making eye contact.

And so, yeah, you know, we just, we, we encourage everybody to, you know, that's participating to just, you know, engage with the people who are there. They came to the, you know, to the Trade Center, to the job fair, obviously, to either look for employment for themselves, or and we encourage, you know, the public as well, even if you are not looking, maybe you have a relative or a friend.

that is looking we often have folks are coming and gathering information, whether it's for their student, who maybe is in class or maybe, you know, a sporting activity. So gathering that information, for them or again, for someone else. So. Yeah. Totally. Oh, okay. Let's see here. Oh, so where can jobseekers find a list of registered employers?

So, both the, businesses, they're thinking about signing up. And for anyone in the community and students that are going to be attending. everybody can go to workforce flathead.com. So just workforce flathead, all one word.com and, if you go to whether it's the student tab, the employers tab, there will be a list of the participating employers, there that we've been updating every week.

Now, it'll be almost every day here as we're getting close to the actual day. and for employers, if they go to the employer tab, there's also the link for the sign up there too. And that'll take you to the Google form that we have, where employers can very quickly sign up, hopefully for the full day if, and if a business is also looking to maybe just engage with students to talk about careers, we do have that option to, but we certainly are encouraging everybody to come for the full day, even if you're hiring for just one position.

you're sure to meet that person there? Yeah, yeah. So you walk into the job fair, what can you expect to see? As as, I guess, like a job seeker. Well, we've got the welcoming right up front as folks come in to the Trade Center and and then once they come in we have our top sponsors are right up front and center.

And then the whole, you know, Trade Center will be filled with, all different employers representing all sorts of industries. Now we've got construction, the health care, hospitality, finance, manufacturing, banking, education, child care, wood products. I mean, there's really just a phenomenal array of businesses will give you a, a map and a list of all the businesses when you, when you come.

So you can kind of navigate your way around the, the job fair, but there will be vehicles parked in the building, you know, all kinds of different stuff. And we will have since the job fair part, is kind of over the dinner hour, we'll have some food trucks there with, the option to have some food.

and like Jen said, if you're a business and you still, and if you're looking to hire some folks or if you want to participate in this event, there's still, you know, tables available, there's a few tables left. So, this is kind of the deadline week. So if you're interested in and getting a table at our job fair, feel free to, to contact us and to go on to that site and, use those links, to get registered.

Yep. And we'll be, there's always a wonderful huge insert that goes into the daily and like the week of the job fair. And so that'll be dropping, next Sunday. So especially for businesses are signing up and they want to be listed within that publication. I know that is coming up basically by probably Thursday morning this week.

So, not that you can't still sign up after, but if you're wanting to be in that, that would definitely be to your advantage. And then, one thing I was going to also mention that Neal said, when you enter, you get the map and you get the list of the employers. One of the things that we do that I think is just so helpful for everybody, is that we ask all the employers what kind of work schedules they offer.

And so when you get that list, you also have a list that shows whether they're hiring for full time, part time, night week and summer schedule. so you can really help identify whatever, whatever particular schedule you are looking for. You can definitely connect with those employers. So that makes it really easy. And that's great. So there's a morning component to the fair just for high school students for the spring job fair.

Can you tell me about the high school career fair? a couple of years ago, you know, we realized for gathering, all of these employers together, all under one roof. And it would be a great opportunity for the high schools to bring their students to learn about careers. and so with that, this has been growing over the last few years.

We're expecting, I think, about ten different high schools from northwest Montana to be bringing, mostly juniors or seniors. some may have maybe a sophomore or a freshman in there, but mostly juniors and seniors will also probably have some PCC students, homeschool students to coming to learn about the careers that are here in the Valley. Right.

These are this is the future workforce for the employers. And, you know, it's just so beneficial for students to be able to talk to actual employers if they're interested in, you know, whether they're working in health care or wood products or manufacturing or, you know, whatever it might be. what type of education do I need? Or certificate or training?

What type of positions do you have? Where can you go with those? what else should I know about these careers? And it's also for both the students and for the the employers. if you're business is hiring for the summer, if you're hiring or if you have internships, apprenticeships or job shadows, this is a wonderful opportunity to engage with students and share those opportunities with them.

And for students to be able to take a look at the variety of type of things that they might be interested in and test drive a career, whether it's in recreation. Right, or, working with, kids over the summer. If you're thinking about becoming a teacher, working through, say, parks and Rec or something like that might be a great experience to say, yeah, I really do love engaging with kids or kids in a certain age range.

so that career emphasis, really is all encompassing from the summer opportunity, and internships all the way to the longer term career opportunity. And I'll also add, for the seniors that are coming, if you're a senior high school student and you don't necessarily have a specific plan yet post-graduation, you know, be it military or a training program, an existing job or college or whatever it might be, if you don't necessarily have a plan and your graduation is coming up in six weeks, this is a great opportunity to make a connection, to start into, into a career.

What are just the benefits of going to a job there in high school? I think there's a lot, you know, like Jen said, you know, it just gives you an opportunity to see what an event like this is about, feel more comfortable engaging with employers. And so you might not need that job right now, but in the future, you might want to come back to a job fair and and kind of just know exactly what to expect, which is pretty important.

So what are you guys looking forward to the most for this? I read point a lot with the schools, so that's probably my biggest area, of emphasis of course, though, along with all of our employers coming in. But just, really what, you know, seeing students and employers make those connections, with each other for, again, summer opportunities and lifelong career.

knowledge. So I really I'm, I'm really excited to see the growth in the participation. Yeah. That's part of it. I like all aspects. It's one of the largest events that we partner with every year. spring job fair. And, it's exciting day. There's a lot of connection with businesses and job seekers and, just the energy and being there at the event is is fantastic.

I'm excited about it. Yeah. Well. Oh, sorry. Just I say I will add I do love and this has happened at every job fair. there's always when we're outside, we always have somebody at the gate welcoming folks and waving them, you know, as they leave and, there's always someone outside, but multiple people that will shout, I got the job as the as they're leaving, you know, just as they're driving on out as sweet and and and and so, those are always really good feelings to know that, you know, we're helping somebody find employment and for a business to help them find that.

Right? Employees. So, yeah, the success stories are, are really cool to hear that last year's spring job fair, I met with a gal afterwards, and she had, you know, came in with a resume and looked sharp and left with a job and was, you know, doing administrative work for for a large business locally and was really pleased that she was able to make that connection.

And our job fair. So those connections do happen. Yeah, yeah. Every time I've gone into super fun event, there's all sorts of really cool businesses there. It's a great way, like you were saying, to just get familiar with all of the great businesses we have here in the Flathead and the opportunities available. So yeah, thank you guys so much for coming down here and tell me a little bit about it.

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