Career fair brings job seekers, employers together

Event exposes community to opportunity

Potential employees and potential employers came face to face.

People of all ages gathered in Big Bend Community College's DeVries Activity Center for the 11th annual job and career fair, running from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, to get help with their resumes, look for jobs online, practice job interviews and talk to people at various recruiting booths throughout the building.

Exhibitors included Columbia Colstor, the Gorge Amphitheater and Blades on Broadway.

"I think it gives us great insight into what students are out there looking for, and just to advertise our program and show the students what's out there," said Mike O'Konek, an automotive technology instructor at BBCC, of the reasons to be an exhibitor at the fair. "If they're interested in different careers, they have the opportunity to ask questions. The biggest thing is, they have to find out what they're interested in, and if it's something that intrigues them."

O'Konek said he thought that the fair was a great asset to the community, allowing its members to come out and see the things in the area that are available to them.

"We get a lot of students, and sometimes we won't see them right away, but we might see them in a year or so, when some of them are in high school still and they'll graduate, and some of them need to get their financial aid in order," he said of the people who were checking out his booth.

"A lot of people in the Moses Lake area or surrounding Columbia Basin area think of the Columbia Basin as agricultural, where this is actually a good hub for technology and stuff like that," said Wes Dodd, information system technician and senior chief petty officer for the U.S. Navy. "I think by coming here to the job fair they actually see what's available, and it's not just limited to one field. There's a lot of fields open to them."

Dodd said he was getting a little bit of interest at his recruitment booth.

"You want to make sure that people are doing this for the right reason," he said. "Being in the military is not an easy life, but it's a privilege to serve the nation and the country."

Paul Michie, a BBCC student in the flight program, said he was at the fair in search of a part-time job opportunity.

"I think it gives people the opportunity to learn more about making resumes, what's important in a good resume, that sort of stuff," Michie said.

"There are a lot of jobs out there that I didn't know were there and available, and I'd be very interested in being employed by them," said Donald Brown, a student at Moses Lake High School.

Brown's interests included being a police officer, an automotive career or a career in the Marine Corps, he said.

Elisabeth Morgan, assistant director of operations at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Seattle, said that she was seeing people from all over the area at the fair.

"Not necessarily just students," she said. "There's a lot of job seekers from surrounding communities, high schoolers; it's reaching a really wide variety."

Morgan said that the flight program at BBCC offers good training, so recruiting is a good idea for the university.

"We also offer a technical management program, so anybody that has any sort of technical associates from Big Bend could transfer to us," Morgan said. "We've always had ties with Big Bend, and we're hoping to bring that back."

BBCC student Jennifer Taylor was at one of the stations conducting an online job search.

"I'm learning how to figure out how to get a job with interviews and resumes and stuff," Taylor said."(I'm looking for) something like a receptionist or something along those lines. Or cashier or things like that."