Among the more than 50 regional employers participating was one of the newest, yet most familiar companies in North Augusta. CordenPharma International recently held a groundbreaking to mark a more than $200 million expansion following the acquisition of AmbioPharm, Inc’s. North Augusta facility. The expansion will create 200 new jobs.
“With our big expansion, career fairs like this in the local workforce will help,” said Sade Spauling, the company’s local HR/ Specialist/Recruiter.
“A lot of the roles that we have, like operators, maintenance, wastewater operators, utility operators, we’re going to have to find those locally. So, this will help with those local operator roles that we have.”
Booths representing employers in South Carolina and Georgia filled the gymnasium at Aiken Technical College (ATC). Staffers from the businesses spoke with a steady stream of job seekers.
It was the university’s annual fall job fair. They also hold one in the spring. The interest, from both employers wanting to participate and individuals looking for a career, came as no surprise to Crystal Edwards, Dean of Student Success and Retention.
“We’re known for having a good amount of participants here at the job fair, good employers, and so over the years we’ve kind of been known for that,” she told ABD. “So, the community knows that around this time we’re going to host the job fair. It’s known in the community, but it’s also marketing, just sending out social media, sending on our website, sending out postings on our website, just inviting the community out to come.”
Isaac Kelly of Aiken/Augusta Staffing (pictured at right) said education and training programs at ATC create a talent pool ready to step into any open positions.
“Their academia here at Aiken Tech directly relates to the jobs that we have right now that we’re looking for,” he explained. “You’re talking industrial maintenance, accounting, computer. I just spoke to a gentleman who’s getting out of IT with his IT degree here, and I’m going to be able to put him into a level one help desk, hopefully with one of my clients.”
Edwards said ATC is purposeful in how they select programs for their class catalog to ensure they are relevant to community needs.
“We align it with our programs that we have here,” she said. “We want to serve our student population. But we also want to serve the community. Our programs are aligned with the employers that we invite here. We want to make sure that our community members know that they come here and they get a degree, then they can connect to the employers that we invite to our community job fair.”
Employers represented all disciplines from local government and public safety departments to healthcare, education, manufacturing, and industrial.
Kelly said, beyond learning about career opportunities, job fairs give businesses and the workforce an opportunity to have immediate contact.
“Anybody that’s looking for work can come by here and connect with all of these employers face to face,” he said. “There’s nothing that beats face-to-face. You can apply on Indeed and ‘post and pray,’ as I say, and that gets you nowhere 99% of the time. That’s why we do in-person, face-to-face, in-person interactions, just like this.”
