By Tammye McDuff
Job seekers talk to recruiters at last year’s job fair. The Los Angeles County Job Fair will be held at Light and Life church in Downey, Tuesday August 26th beginning at 10:00 am.
Church Job Fairs [CJB] believes in working for a ‘Hire Cause’. CJB wants to help bring zero percent unemployment into each community. The Los Angeles County Job Fair will be held at Light and Life church in Downey, Tuesday August 26th beginning at 10:00 am.
CJB works to connect individuals with employers, businesses with the absolute best and most qualified employees and strives to bring opportunities into cities. Recent fairs have attracted over 60 employers and more than 700 job seekers.
Employment Development Department [EDD] participates with CJB assisting job seekers with resume writing, appropriate dress and hints for a successful job application..
A resume writing course was held at Light and Life church Tuesday, August 20th. Gerhard Kramer, Church Job Fairs Founder has a background with the Los Angeles Times for 25 years and has recruitment advertising as a career builder with Yahoo and Monster.
“It is our job to not only match employers to employees,” Kramer told HMG “But to give the potential employees the best possible situation to apply and get hired. We can come in and do this half way or rely on those resources that do this for a living. The EDD is always available to us to help out.”
Many job fairs have resume writing and resources available the day of a fair, however CJB offers the course beforehand; Kramer stated “When a person walks into a fair and discovers that there are mistakes or ways to improve the resume, the person feels discouraged because they feel they cannot hand out an imperfect resume.
This way, with the class a week prior to the Fair, a person has the time to construct a better resume.”
EDD gets the benefit of a pre-workshop, not only to assist the job seeker but to introduce them to Cal Jobs that the state can offer.
Attendees also received a fast pass to the fair, “The folks that came to the workshop, took the extra step to improve their presentation, so we give them a fast pass. They do not have to stand in line, and do the preliminary steps to attend the fair,” commented Kramer.
Rev. Kevin Boyce, Pastor and Light and Life church is elated to offer this to the community; Pastor Kevin said “It is important to be a church of the community, not just a church in the community. We want to be productive and serve the entire neighborhood.” Pastor Kevin made the remark he believes there is no better way to ‘give out hope’. “Think of all the families out there that are broken and have no hope and are discouraged, giving way to depression, we want to offer a way out of that.”
Currently there are more than 40 vendors that have signed up, with an approximate response of over 250 attendees. Kramer suggests preregistration; however attendees can show up the day of the event.
For more information go to churchjobfairs.org or contact Gerhard Kramer at 909.549.8329 or contact Light and Life church at lightandlifechurch.org and go to the job fair page for registration.