Organizers of the first-ever Jefferson County Job Fair were hopeful but a bit apprehensive about how the event would go.
“We were scared to death, actually,” Arnold Mayor Ron Counts said, surveying the packed parking lot moments after the fair opened. “But this is a great turnout.”
More than 500 job seekers attended the free event, held Oct. 23 at the Fox C-6 Service Center in Arnold. It was sponsored by five local entities: Leader Publications, the city of Arnold, the Arnold Chamber of Commerce, the Fox C-6 School District and Jefferson College.
“Everyone worked so hard,” Counts said. “It really does go to show you what can happen when different community entities work together.”
Planning for the event had been in the works for months.
“We’ve had front-page stories promoting this for the last four weeks,” said Leader editor Peggy Bess. “And we profiled businesses and did stories about job seeking in our Job Fair special section in the Oct. 17 issue.”
Vendors were overwhelmingly positive about the experience.
“This is the best one of these we’ve been to in a while,” said Scott Pagel of Production Castings in Fenton. “We’ve had probably 300 people stop by here. I’ve pretty much talked nonstop.”
Like many of the vendors, Pagel said his company accepted resumes and gave out information and applications.
“We got a few strong candidates,” he said. “Now we’ll see what happens. We probably won’t reach out to them unless they reach out to us first. We want to see that motivation, that initiative.”
Visitors to the job fair ranged from teenagers to retirees, and from entry-level job seekers to high-end workers.
Jeff Phillips of Arnold, a retired manager, stopped by both out of curiosity and to scope out opportunities.
“I work part time, but it’s not very much,” he said. “I’m looking for something with maybe a little more hours.”
Sarah Sweet, 27, of De Soto showed up without a clear idea of what kind of job she was looking for and said she was pleased with the variety of opportunities available.
“This is a great event,” she said. “I got several applications, and I already have an interview.”
Linda Bourisaw, 54, of rural Festus works at an insurance agency in Sunset Hills.
“They are closing that office and relocating to an office up on I-270 and Olive,” she said. “I don’t know if I want to drive all that way, so I’m here to look around and see what might be out there, see who can put a bigger carrot in front of me.”
Lora Taylor of Fenton, who works in the human resources field as a manager, came to hopefully make a job connection that could eliminate her three-hour daily commute.
“I like my job, but I’m looking for something closer,” she said. “When we had that ice storm (in January) that closed down all the roads, I was seven hours getting home.”
Lora Warner, employment specialist with Jefferson College, helped job seekers with their resumes.
After a steady stream of attendees throughout the four-hour event, organizers said they were pleased with the outcome.
“For a first time event, we felt like this was a huge success,” Leader publisher Pam LaPlant said. “It was nice to see such a wide range of people from the community come together to help match jobs with people who need them.
“We are already talking about doing another one.”