HANCEVILLE, Ala. – Students from Wallace State Community College and representatives from several businesses and industries got the opportunity to network with each other in the hopes of finding future employment or employees.
Each month, the college’s Center for Career and Workforce Development (CCWD) holds Industry Comes to Wallace State, where area businesses and industries can meet with students from certain programs that may best fit with the jobs they are seeking to fill.
“This is an opportunity for us to bring companies on to campus to interact with our students more regularly, not just once a year for a career fair,” said Bethany Campbell of CCWD. “It’s more condensed, so we have five or six companies each month and they are here to speak to targeted groups of students for jobs that they want to hire for right now, as well as internship opportunities.”
Lt. James Perry of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO) was on hand to recruit candidates to serve as deputies with the JCSO.
“There’s a great need for deputy sheriffs as well as law enforcement officers,” Perry said. “We are looking for youth because we believe youth is the future of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and law enforcement, period. We come to colleges and high schools because we believe that those candidates are the future. We need young people who are willing to work and don’t mind getting out there and fighting crime.”
Letrenda Hardy of the Personnel Board of Jefferson County said law enforcement jobs have the most openings right now with the county, but there are about 80 job openings now in all types of careers. Some of the job openings now include nurse practitioner, dentist, city and county engineers, heavy equipment operators and more.
“There’s a whole range of jobs,” Hardy said, adding events like Industry Comes to Wallace State help them get the word out about applying for jobs. “So that when students are looking for jobs, they remember us and they remember our website, jobsquest.com. Jobsquest gives you contact with all of our 22 agencies where you can make applications.”
“I’m looking for people that really want to invest in themselves and find out what their opportunity is, what their capabilities are,” Mike Borden a 1995 graduate of WSCC’s HVAC program and owner of Borden Services of West Point, a residential and commercial HVAC. “Our workforce is dwindling down and our skillset is disappearing, so we want to revitalize that and give that a bit of a push.”
Lora Kent Gilliland of LP Building Solutions is a frequent vendor at Wallace State career events.
“This helps get the word out about what we do,” she said of the local company that manufactures oriented strand board, or OSB. The company is part of the college’s FAME program, and has one current, and two former FAME students working at the company right now.
For more information about Wallace State’s Center for Career and Workforce Development’s Industry Comes to Wallace State or internship and apprenticeship opportunities for students, contact Jamie Blackmon at 256-352-8461 or jamie.blackmon@wallacestate.edu or visit www.wallacestate.edu/careerdevelopment.
