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Warehouse and Operations as a Career, Marty here with you again and WAOC’s been invited to attend a large job fair hosted by Belmar Integrated Logistics at their Garland Tx Recruiting Office and Training Center. We’re set up in the Training Center where they train and instruct their 29 CFR 1910.178 certifications and the OSHA 10hr and 30hr classes and several others, Belmar is truly committed to Safety and the training of their Associates. I can tell ya there all set up to put us to work here today, I’m hearing they have 54 positions to fill and there’s Recruiters interviewing for every one of them! Please forgive my voice, I guess I’m coming down with something but I just couldn’t miss the good time here today! Maybe one of those donuts would help me, what you think? They’ve got the doors open, the music playing, balloons for the little ones and a whole table of pastries up against the wall over there!
You know, I think Job fairs can be our quickest ticket to a position. I mean when any agency or company puts on a Job Fair we know they have position with an immediate start available. I’m sure it cost quite a bit for the venue and having recruiters or hiring agents present for all the interviews right. Another great thing is we have a chance to check out the hiring company as well. We’ve discussed the importance of doing our own research on the companies we’re interested in. At job fairs we have the opportunity to ask questions of them and size them up just as their sizing us up. I feel by asking questions like how does the company feel about Safety, or asking the recruiter how the company feels towards their employees and such. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking an associate how they like working for them either. If there’s a benefits coordinator or manager their have them explain all the benefits offered and what they think of the company too!
SHARON
What do you feel are some of the best ways for us applicants to seek employment?
How can we, applicants, better prepare when attending a large job fair?
Can you give me a “Do Not” thing to do when we’re at a Job fair?
While out mingling, visiting and networking a bit earlier I had the opportunity to meet several job applicants and quite a few individuals that just wandered in to see what all was going on. It’s always so cool to talk with everyone, hear their stories and to try and connect them with people that can help them in their job searches. At a job fair I always see applicants that are really prepared, they’ve showed up with Resumes or Job Histories in hand, addresses and contact phone numbers with them and any beneficiary’s or dependents names and information with them and ready to fill out their hiring documents. I’d have to think these people would be the dream applicants for a hiring agent as it’d have to make their jobs much easier! I know, for me anyway it’d be much easier to get them on boarded and put to work! Of course, not all of us are quite as organized and many of us may not know exactly what all we need with us to actually apply for employment. It can be stressful for us, and I know myself I can easily get lost in everything that’s thrown at me. I almost get the impression a recruiter or hiring agent prefers this applicant over the organized group. Maybe because they end up spending more time with us, they probably can learn much more about us as there helping turn all our work histories into summary’s and learn much more about our skills, what we feel we’re good at and they probably pull more of our weaknesses out of us as well! Recruiters need those people skills and I guess they really enjoy helping us or others, I’ve honestly never seen one get too frustrated with an applicant that’s truly doing their best to get a job.
We’ve talked in previous episodes how important it is to be prepared for the questions and information that’ll be needed for our job interviews, if you missed episodes 4 and 5, The Resume and The Interview or maybe episode 42 Job Fair & Ready to Start, and I think our episode 74 Social Media as a Job Search Resource could be worth a listen, we talked about what our future employers are needing from us and what their looking for in an applicant, check them out if you have a few moments.
I veered off my train of thought again, anyway, while visiting I met a gentleman that had just moved to Garland from another town about 50 miles away, he’d settled in, got the house set up and was just starting the job search process I guess. Any way he had just seen the balloons and heard the music and stopped in to see what was going on. He had over 10 years of sit down forklift experience, a tried a true warehouseman if you will, I really enjoyed talking with him, he definitely had the experience to walk away with a job today as there was two different temp to perm positions to be filled on the spot basically. When he was approached by a recruiter he stated he’d be back on Saturday to fill out an application! Don’t do that! I believe, as job seekers, we have to fill out any application, any time we’re presented with the opportunity. I know we’re busy, he’d had no plans on filling out applications today and his time may have been a bit tight, but Opportunity was Knocking, he hadn’t planned on it, but it was knocking and I feel we have to answer that door when it does. Another young man had just stopped in, he filled out an application, a funny thing about his motivation, he spent like 30 minutes looking up previous job’s addresses and contact numbers on his phone for the application, interviewed and got a great job for his efforts, he’ll start in two days! With that first guy there’s a pretty good chance those two forklift positions will be filled, he’ll hear 6 days from now, that they we’re filled earlier in the week. I hated that too, one of the positions was a great position! Now he could have really had something to do and just didn’t have time to fill anything out, but I think he should have given his contact info to the recruiter and asked if something could be set up sooner than 6 days, good jobs can evade us sometimes, job searching can be challenging work right!
Another person I enjoyed visiting with was a Mother with two sons’. She had seen the signs out front and came in to see what type of positions were available. I spoke with her as to what I knew about a few and learned she had a 17-year-old that was about to turn 18 and was really interested in warehousing and all it’s opportunities, and the 20 year old was very interested in advancing and was looking for something else. It turned out her husband had a full Career in the Transportation arena for like 20 years, I really enjoyed visiting with her. She gathered up some contact information to take to them and I’m looking forward to maybe following up on them both next week!
Like Sharon shared with us earlier, when we’re looking for a job we need to do a little research on the position we’re applying for. We should make sure we’re qualified and have the work history to be an asset to the company. We’ll be investing a lot of our time filling out applications and being interviewed so it only makes since that we try and not waste our day applying for a position in the hopes we’ll some how be placed. I feel job searching is a full-time gig, so I think we should target, really drill down to our best prospects. I assure you the hiring agents we’ll be dealing with are going to choose the strongest candidate!
We’ve talked about several resources for us to use with our search for a new job recently, maybe check out episode 73, The Classifieds, Job Boards & Print Ad’s. And after today, with Sharon’s help we’ve heard how to and what to not do regarding Job Fairs. A great resource, I feel maybe the strongest resource we applicants have in our tool box to secure our next position and start our Career with!
I hope my hoarse voice was ok today, I just couldn’t miss out on all the fun here today & I want to thank Belmar Integrated Logistics for inviting WAOC out today! And I of course want to thank each of you for listening to us today, we appreciate your time and I hope we’re bringing some value to your job searches and Career paths. Please email us at host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com with any topics you’d like to share or discuss with the group and maybe Like and Follow us on Facebook & Twitter where we can be found at @whseandops! Thanks again and until next week, think safe, be safe and let’s help remind our co-workers it’s all our job’s to practice safety in the work place!