TONY D’IMPERIO/Special to the County News
A Sweetners Plus recruiter, left, explaining job opportunities to an interested Job Fair participant.
Employment
Job fair attracts big crowd
The Genesee River Reception Center in Mount Morris was packed last week with 275 people visiting 28 employers for the 16th annual Livingston County Job Fair. Some attendees were out of work and looking for a job, while others were working but wanting to change careers.
Why change jobs now in this unsteady employment market? A Livingston County resident told me that his gasoline expenses, driving to and from work in Penn Yan, were becoming outrageous; so, he would like a job closer to home.
The rocky employment road is starting to smooth out. For example, Concentrix, a firm that provides services to leading companies for sales, marketing, technical and customer support, will be adding 350 jobs over the next three years.
In addition to chats with employers, the Job Fair offered four different workshops to job seekers.
One of the sessions, entitled “Filling out an Application,” advised in its leaflet that simple things like writing ASAP in the space for date-when-you-can-start or writing any for hours-available could drop your application in the no pile.
Another topic, “Advanced Manufacturing Scholarships,” covered ways for getting tuition grants toward an Associates Degree to study precision machining and optical fabrication, to name a few.
A third workshop gave tips on how to work effectively with employment agencies in the job search, and it provided a list of over 90 agencies in the area.
A fourth session, “Getting Started with LinkedIn,” an online professional networking web site used by many employers to recruit or run background checks, showed participants how to get started with LinkedIn and using it in a job search.
To cover expenses, the Job Fair team charges employers $75 to have table space.
The Livingston County Job Fair was born from the pioneering leadership of county residents Tim McMahon and Dale Sells when they asked themselves: “How come there are job fairs everywhere else, but not here in Livingston County?”
At that time, McMahon was Executive Director of Catholic Charities of Livingston County and Sells was working in the job placement department of the Livingston County Department of Social Services.
