Dozens of employers are hoping to fill their vacancies and are targeting a new wave of employees. Southwest Florida will host the area’s largest career fair of the year on Tuesday.
Suncoast arena is often the site of big-time athletic events. Tuesday, the Florida Southwestern State College campus facility will host the career fair.
“Finding creative ways and helpful ways to bring people on board is any recruiters challenge,” said Mike Biskie with B&I Contractors.
Biskie will be at the event and looking to hire, and he will find a whole new group of applicants from which to choose because this CareerSource career fair will bus high school students in to interview for jobs.
“Very hard to find even entry-level people which is surprising you might think but the number of competing jobs in different industries and different locations there just more jobs than there are people,” said Biskie.
Biskie said his company needs to fill as many as 180 jobs across Fort Myers, Tampa, and Fort Lauderdale.
Amy Hanna-Eckenrode is the communications manager for CareerSource. She said events like Tuesday’s career fair aim to help many different kinds of employers.
“80 businesses that will be in attendance but more than 15 universities colleges universities and technical schools all under one roof to help job seekers and those seeking new careers it’s going to be basically a one-stop-shop,” said Hanna-Eckenrode.
If you would like to learn more about what companies will be at the event, you can find a full list on the CareerSource website by clicking here. There you can also find a link to register for the career fair.
80 businesses and 15 schools will all be under the same roof trying to match open positions with people looking for work.
What makes Tuesday’s career fair at Suncoast Arena unique? High school students.
“To help them decide if they wanted to enter the workforce post-graduation,” said Amy Daivs, director of adult and career education for Lee County schools.
Three school districts will provide busses for their seniors.
Davis said the goal is to help students have a plan before they go into the real world. “Work with them earlier in their senior year to say what are you thinking about doing beyond graduation how can we help either create an internship a work-based learning experience or set up an interview on your behalf to get you gainfully employed,” said Davis.
Davis said this will also help employers by identifying kids who want to stay local.
“We see the value in our students staying within our region that that can be an economic advantage to our community if the students we educated for 13 plus years to keep their talent in our community we want them to stay,” said Davis.
This career fair will offer jobs of all kinds from construction to health care and everything in between.
CareerSource says if you attended, be prepared to meet with recruiters and have on-the-spot interviews. The Southwest Florida Spring Regional Career Fair will be held Tuesday, April 5th, at the Suncoast Credit Union Arena on FSW’s campus from 9:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m.