SOUTH BURLINGTON — From robotics repair to makeup manufacturing to website analysis, a host of open jobs were presented to hundreds of job seekers Monday at an Employer and Training Provider Job Fair in South Burlington.
The event, occasioned in large part by a layoff of hundreds of IBM workers that took effect Friday, is one part of the Vermont Department of Labor’s efforts to keep the state’s unemployment rate at roughly 4 percent. About 80 employers, educational institutions and state agencies attended the fair.
“It’s a nice mix of businesses,” said Jim Clairmont, whose position as software engineer at IBM was eliminated after he’d spent 33 years there. Clairmont was pleasantly surprised by several small, Vermont-based businesses he had never heard of before encountering them Monday morning in the ballroom of the Sheraton Burlington Hotel and Conference Center.
In addition to firms like Global-Z, which cleans databases for international sales and marketing needs, or ASK-intTag, which recently landed a contract to supply U.S. passport covers, more familiar names such as Cabot Creamery and Dealer.com were on hand.
The range of open jobs was vast: Entry-level positions for people with a high-school education or GED. Manufacturing engineer. Beer cellar operator. Consumer Web products manager.
The range of job seekers was equally wide: Electrical engineer. Banking and customer service representative. Hardware tester.
Many of the skilled workers who attended the fair acknowledged they likely would have to tap their “transferable skills” if they want to stay employed in Vermont. Many of the businesses expressed willingness to customize their training programs and even offer educational opportunities for workers with the right baseline skill set or experience.
The trick will be to make the match between the two — a task several colleges and training service providers lined up to help with.
Looking to hire
Vermont HITEC is a nonprofit that leverages state and federal funds to develop customized training programs for area businesses. Julie Hegle, dean of academic affairs for the organization, explained that HITEC starts with a business’ needs, such as the number of phlebotomists Fletcher Allen Health Care expects to require in the coming year. The organization then screens applicants for the training programs it develops in response to those needs.
What started as medical transcription program to encourage home-based work in the Northeast Kingdom has evolved into a training model that HITEC adapts for the likes of Fletcher Allen, Hypertherm and Husky, Hegle said.
There is an economy of scale at play with HITEC that might not make it a suitable partner for all businesses, however. Hegle said most of their training programs are designed for eight or more employees at a time. Many employers at the job fair advertised for single openings in just a few positions.
Several employers said they would prefer to hire locally, but the skill sets they’re looking for are hard to find. NewsBank Inc., for example, is looking for someone to manage its Web-based genealogy service.
“Managing the consumer products model is unique,” human resources vice-president Dale Williamson said. She said the company hasn’t gone so far as to look on the West Coast, but they’ve yet to find someone for the job who can telecommute within a day’s travel of their Chester, Vt., or Keene, N.H., offices.
Jay McGrath seemed surprisingly encouraged by the event. As labor relations manager for AgriMark, the corporation that owns Cabot Creamery, McGrath has been recruiting for a specialized technician position for two months to no avail. In the morning, he said his firm was willing to “train up” and even pay for education to help the right employee fill the slot.
He may not need to. By lunchtime, McGrath had received several resumes from fully qualified workers — some of whom were displaced from IBM — and was setting up interviews with people he met that day.
Looking for work
Two hours before the job fair concluded, officials from the Department of Labor estimated that more than 300 job seekers had signed in.
Clairmont, who had been pleased by the number and range of businesses that set up booths, said he was struck by the number of people who had come looking for jobs.
“I hadn’t expected to see so many people who are still looking for work,” he said.
Clairmont said that because he was already eligible for retirement when IBM laid him off, it’s easier for him to be upbeat than it is for some of his younger colleagues who lost their jobs.
But the job fair also proved encouraging to some younger job seekers.
Anna Stewart, 38, said her conversations with employers helped her realize just how many of the skills she had developed in 15 years at IBM would be transferable to new titles, and possibly even new industries.
“I’m definitely willing to do a full career change,” Stewart said.
She had always been happy at IBM, in large part because she enjoyed her co-workers and the “intangibles” of working there — in addition to the pay, Stewart said. “This gives me the opportunity to see what else is out there.”
Stewart said she talked with one woman from Edward Jones who also had been an engineer before joining the investment firm. “It’s gathering data, analyzing data and making recommendations,” she said — the same essential process she has used to successfully troubleshoot problems for the team she oversaw at IBM.
“It’s a little daunting because you’re used to a certain lifestyle,” Stewart said. “And your children are used to a certain lifestyle,” she added, laughing.
But just as she noted a theme for employers is that they didn’t expect candidates to walk right into skilled work without training, she thinks it’s reasonable to expect a drop in pay when contemplating a career change.
“Transferable skills” was the word of the day. Dave Bogdan, who had worked at IBM for 35 years, specializes in tech hardware but noticed more software openings at the booths he visited Monday.
“That’s the bridge they’re trying to make,” Bogdan said, looking around the high-ceilinged room filled with rows of booths.
His two older children are on their own and have moved out of state, Bogdan said, but with a 20-year-old stepson who has special needs, he and his wife are hoping they can find a bridge that will keep them in Vermont.
* This article was updated at 8:20 a.m. Tuesday, July 16.
