Leader staff

Community Futures and Northern Lakes College teamed up to hold a job fair on Oct. 21 at the college in Slave Lake. With so many employers looking for workers, it’s not surprising the turnout was good from that side of things. There was hardly a space to squeeze in another booth.

According to Divine Kitchen of Community Futures, 38 spots were booked. Most were by companies looking to recruit workers; five of them were agencies that provide support services to job seekers.

The businesses ranged from the quite small – Legacy Childcare – up to the big forest products operators such as West Fraser, Tolko and Vanderwell Contractors. Educational institutions were well represented, with NLC and HPSD there. So were restaurants, banks, municipal governments, law enforcement organizations and three or four oilfield service companies.

Kitchen says about 150 job-seekers attended the event, checking out the materials and chatting with the recruiters. They included people looking for work right away, and students checking out the prospects for future reference.

“Many of these companies were looking to fill a variety of job vacancies,” Kitchen says. Some of them were collecting resumés, and “some job-seekers were even offered on-the-spot interviews.”

Will there be another job fair next year?

Maybe.

“We’d love to entertain the idea as long as we had the same participation from local businesses,” says Community Futures LSL Executive Director Josh Friesen. “Though timing might change depending on what’s best to capture new applicants.”