Bell County colleges partnering with Workforce Solutions for job fair Wednesday

BELL COUNTY, Texas (KWTX) - College graduations are right around the corner, and that means thousands of students will be looking for jobs, some of them right here in Central Texas.

Workforce Solutions of Central Texas, Temple College, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Texas A&M University Central Texas, Central Texas College and area businesses are partnering to create a one-stop-shop—the Graduate Pathways Hiring Event on Wednesday, May 4.

The event is from 2-6 p.m. at the Bell County Expo Center, and will feature more than 50 local businesses from a variety of industries—everything from healthcare to technology to management or finance.

Charley Ayres, director of industry/education partnerships for Workforce Solutions, said it’s important to bring together a diverse career fair to show students all the options, including ones they may not have thought of.

“When we think of healthcare, we think that would be just working with patients when in health care, they have cybersecurity occupations, they have management occupations,” Ayres said. “They may be actually working for a medical center but they’re working in cybersecurity at a medical center and they never see a patient.”

Ayres said in the last 30 days, businesses posted more than 3,000 jobs requiring an associates, bachelor’s or master’s degree, and that’s why they’re turning to local colleges to fill the gaps.

“They are producing the talent that they need here in our region, and so we certainly wanted to have an impact on students being able to connect with jobs,” Ayres said. “But we want the employers to be able to find those difficult positions that they’ve been having trouble trying to hire.”

Don Owens, director of career services for the University of Mary Hardin Baylor, said that has created a great hiring environment in recent months, but it is a competitive one, so a job fair like this is an important steps for students.

“This first connection is more of a networking and let me have your resume and go online and get this application filled out,” Owens said. “But it’s the important piece in that face-to-face of kind of showing that employer that ‘hey, I’m a professional and I’m work ready.’”

Seton Medical Center Harker Heights will be attending the job fair tomorrow. Dalia Guajardo, recruiter for the hospital, said there has been a rapid change in the job market recently, and there’s a lot of competition across the country.

They currently have about 50 openings, primarily in nursing, but there are also openings in other departments like radiology.

Guajardo said Seton has a history of hiring recent graduates And they’re hoping to fill some openings at this event.

“For years we’ve really opened the door to new graduates,” Guajardo said. “Really trying to be a facility where they can come and get really great training where they can get preceptors that really care about their process and are invested in providing that time that is needed for them to get a really great experience.”

The job fair will be held in the Assembly Hall at the Bell County Expo Center. It is free to attend, and students are encouraged to bring plenty of resumes and be prepared for interviews.