Area job fair opens doors Thursday

Wanted: Truck drivers, welders, nurses, insurance sales representatives and call center workers.

And a whole lot more.

When the doors open for the annual Southeast Missourian Career Fair at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Osage Community Centre, more than 30 booths will be staffed by employers offering jobs. Some employers are looking for one or two workers to fill an opening. Others are looking for dozens, if not hundreds, of applicants to fill a variety of positions.

Alongside the immediate job opportunities, those attending can visit booths where they can listen to a pitch of how they can obtain the additional training that would qualify them for the jobs being offered.

There are no big business deals riding on this year's fair, as there was last year when National Asset Recovery Services, or NARS, was using the fair to gauge whether there were enough people willing to work for the company to justify launching a Cape Gir?ardeau call center. More than 2,500 people attended, and 900 of them filed applications with NARS.

But NARS will be back at this year's fair, hoping to find people to staff an employee deli, an employee day-care center and to add about 100 new call center employees by the end of the year, said Amanda Hayes, senior director of the Cape Gir?ardeau call center.

The company would like to open the day-care center in about a month, Hayes said, and is looking for people with degrees in early childhood education or equivalent experience. "We have the director, and we are in the process of looking for all the other employees," Hayes said.

The call center employs about 400 people, Hayes said. "We would love to have another 100 by the end of the year."

While NARS is a returning recruiter, other companies are taking part in the career fair for the first time. Kenny Garrett, operations manager for Advance Logistics, needs forklift drivers, mechanics and truck drivers for his business that operates in support of the Procter & Gamble plant on Highway 177.

Advance Logistics operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with employees working four 12-hour shifts followed by four days off, Garrett said. Forklift drivers deliver supplies and remove finished product from the production lines, while the truck drivers operate over a two-mile route to move the products to warehousing before shipping.

The truck drivers must have a Class A commercial driver's license, Garrett said, and there's no over-the-road work. "We have a lot of guys who just want to come off the road," he said of his driver force.

The new employees, about 15 total, will join expanded teams and replace workers lost recently to job changes, Garrett said.

Real estate training

The educational opportunities on hand Thursday include real estate training and a chance to examine the offerings of the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center. "We are there for the exposure," said Tim Pensel. "We will bring brochures of all our programs we have to offer."

The career and technology center offers classes in various vocational fields as well as enrichment classes for people seeking to learn about new technologies or crafts, he said. Classes are offered in the day and evening.

"A lot of our programs are based on program certifications," Pensel said. "It is possible to obtain certifications in the evenings during the course of a school year."

Not all the participating employers are based in Cape Girardeau. Wheeler Steel and Truck Equipment Inc. of Morley, Mo., needs about 15 people to help build trailers, truck dump beds and snow plow attachments to fill contracts with Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska and New York, said Dana Lynch, personnel coordinator.

"We are always looking for MIG welders," Lynch said. "We are needing about 15 people for our shop right now, good dependable workers. There are a lot of other trailer companies within a few miles of us, and we all compete for welders."

This is the company's second year of participation, Lynch said. The 2006 fair led to hiring several people, she said. "I look forward to going back," she said. "We got some good candidates."

Both Cape Girardeau hospitals are participating. Saint Francis Medical Center, for instance, has a lengthy list of needs, both for licensed jobs and for positions needing no state license, said Nancy Huckstep, a nurse recruiter.

The jobs available at Saint Francis include registered nurses, nurse anesthetists, certified nursing assistants, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and clerical workers. "We have about 70 open positions right now that we could fill if all the right people came in the door."

At least six employers are looking for sales help, ranging from travel companies to insurance. For example, Joe Pupek, district manager for Aflac Insurance, said he wants to hire from five to 10 sales representatives.

"I am looking for as many as I can hire," he said. "My quota goes up 20 percent every year as businesses out there continue to grow."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126