November 16, 2016 · 0 Comments
Following the “incredible success” of the Town of Orangeville’s inaugural community job fair, municipal officials are already planting the seeds that could see further events spring up in the future.
With approximately 440 people passing through the doors of the Best Western hotel on Tuesday of last week (Nov. 8), event organizer Ruth Phillips, Economic Development Manager with the Town of Orangeville, noted the interest and subsequent response of the community would be the driving force behind future job fairs.
“This was a very-well-attended job fair, we’re hearing from some of the businesses that this job fair had a better attendance than similar fairs in much larger metropolitan areas, which is obviously fantastic,” Mrs. Phillips told the Citizen. “As our first-ever job fair, we weren’t sure what to expect. However, we are very pleased with the turnout – both from local job seekers and commuters who were looking to improve their quality of life.”
The event itself was a collaborated effort between the Town, the Waterloo Wellington Dufferin Workplace Planning Board, Georgian College’s Centre for Career and Employment Services and the Dufferin Board of Trade, with a focus on promoting current opportunities in key industries situated within Dufferin County.
With 26 businesses from across Dufferin on hand to promote potential jobs and careers available within their organization, those in attendance certainly had a number of options in front of them.
“We had strong representation from the manufacturing sector and the various opportunities they had available. Retail, hospitality, finance, social services, business processing and real estate were also represented,” Mrs. Phillips said.
Amongst those in attendance were Community Living Dufferin, the Town of Orangeville, Georgian College, Orangeville Home Hardware, Alton Millcroft Inn and Spa, DataCable, Investors Group, Hockley Valley Resort, Armtec, Novolex and Century 21.
With each of the businesses looking to fill a wealth of different positions, the majority of those in attendance seemed to agree on one thing when talking to the Citizen – there’s no shortage of jobs available in the region.
“We’ve been running into problem after problem over the past number of months as it relates to filling positions at our resort,” said Tracy Hoddinott, Director of Human Resources, Hockley Valley Resort. “We’ve been having so many challenges with recruiting that we have actually had to reach out to our MP (David Tilson) to see what we can do together as a community to help our organization find potential employers.
“I think you can see with all the businesses in the room here today that we’re all facing the same challenges. This is a real problem in this region.”
With several part-time and full-time service staff positions available, Mrs. Hoddinott was pleased with the number of potential employees she talked to at the job fair, calling the event a “huge help” as she tries to address the resort’s staffing issues.
“I’m impressed with the people I’ve spoken to today and more so I’m impressed with the sheer number of people I’ve seen walking around. I’ve received a good 60 or 70 positive resumes, so it was well worth our time coming out and being a part of this job fair,” Mrs. Hoddinott said.
Mrs. Phillips said that was a sentiment shared by most of the businesses that attended the event. There was “significant interest” in the Town hosting a second job fair sometime in the near future.
“We surveyed the participating businesses on various aspects of the job fair and the feedback from them has been very, very positive,” she said. “It was offered in a convenient, central location and attendees were very engaged. The vast majority of business owners that participated have indicated they would definitely participate in a future event, so we would certainly look at doing this again in the future.”