A unique meeting of potential employers and employees happened Tuesday afternoon in Prince George.
The provincial government's employment roadshow - the BC Jobs Start Here job fair campaign - opened its doors at the Coast Inn of the North from noon to 7 p.m. and even the organizers were surprised by the response.
"People were actually waiting outside the door to come in at noon," said event organizer Hannah Serathim.
Her colleague Lucas Segars added, "we are well over halfway through [the 24-community tour], we have done similar-sized places like Kamloops and Nanaimo, but the turnout in Prince George surprised us. A lot of people are really interested."
Unlike youth-focused job fairs like CNC's and UNBC's regular ones, this one was provincial in scope and in a publicly central location.
"This job fair is much different than a lot of the others I have done," said Linda Allen, a human resources tech for the BC Ambulance Service who was meeting with potential employees alongside paramedic Jana Hargreaves-Flegel. "Some can be quite costly, but this one was free. This one had a good range of booths and different kinds of career options. The people looking for work here are a different calibre, more diverse, and the event itself is really well organized so we have been happy with our time here."
The procession of interested candidates was decidedly adult. There were as many seniors as there were youth, with the vast bulk of people being in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Some were pushing babies in strollers, holding the hands of toddlers, husbands and wives together, parents and adult children together, and some were looking on behalf of loved ones out of town.
The booths where representatives handed out information were mixed widely between big industrial companies to financial services firms to caregiver companies to food/hospitality/tourism employers.
A wide range from the public sector was also in attendance like the RCMP, Corrections, WorkSafeBC, BC Hydro and others. Also institutions like CNC, the Industrial Training Authority and trade unions had a presence.
All the booths visited said they had seen at least some traffic by early evening, and some reported meeting very promising candidates. Organizers confirmed that all hours of the fair had been busy with curious passersby. If any booths among the 30-or-so participants had consistent crowds, they were Canfor and petroleum company Devon.
"It is tough for us to compete with what the big industrial companies are offering, but we attract people with different career goals, we offer local employment instead of having to go out of the community to work for a lot of the big natural resources companies, and we are entrepreneur-based, growing your own business under the Investors Group umbrella," said the financial management firm's representative Randy Perry. "We are seeing a lot more older people at this job fair, and younger ones at a lot of the other ones we've attended before. There are upsides to both: younger and driven, older and life-experienced. We have actually seen a lot of Lakeland Mill employees here."
The travelling job fair has different companies attending or sitting out in different communities, based on their regional needs. Each one is an interesting and insightful snapshot of that community, said Serathim and Segars who are stationed at the front door of each event. They are next in Fort St. John.
