BCCI Aims to Connect Job Seekers with 1,000 Openings at Upcoming Job Fair

In related news, the BCCI is looking to aid its members in hiring an estimated one thousand persons at its upcoming job fair.  Recent years have seen a surge in job fairs across the country.  Statistics have shown the unemployment rate at its lowest in decades which does beg the question if employers are now facing a hard time sourcing workers for various positions.  One job fair in the horizon is being hosted this weekend by the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI).  According to Andrew Usher, Marketing and Public Relations Manager at the BCCI, the job fair is primarily to give persons an opportunity to see what opportunities are out there.  More importantly, however, he noted that the chamber’s membership is having some challenges in filling current vacancies.

Andrew Usher, Public Relations Manger, BCCI: “It’s grown over the three years to a big event. This year we have, I think, about 26 or 27 participants who will be out there,  employers and organizations that are going to be out there and we have over 1,000 vacancies to fill.  So, yeah,  it’s something where there are jobs in  the market, but you really have to come and bring an A game and find out about what’s out there.  Again, you might say, oh well I’ve been looking for a job and I haven’t been able to find one.  This is the purpose of the event, to come out and see what’s available from the different businesses and organizations as well. Because a lot of times people think that it’s only about the BPO’s and really we’ve always tried to make it a mix so that it’s not only about customer service and sales, it’s also about manual and IT and these different fields as well. One of the things that people need to realize also whether you’re just coming out to school or you’ve been in the job market for years, there’s always room to improve and there’s always room to learn. And I think, especially in the digital era that we’re coming up in, a lot of us have cell phones, a majority of us have cell phones and we have access to YouTube and YouTube is a great platform among others that you’re able to train yourself in how to do something. So you might be able to learn how to code off of YouTube. And the reason why I bring that up is because take for instance,  some of the technical positions if you want to call them that that will be available. We have  electrical technician, engineering technician, automotive technician. We have the virtual receptionist. We have digital communications officer, monitoring and evaluation officer, coding engineer, corporate relations manager, branch manager, chief financial officer, investment promotion associate, business analyst, IT specialist, credit senior manager. These are some very top positions. It’s not just entry level,  if you’d call it that entry level position. These are some top positions that these companies and organizations are trying to fill.”

One of the key things noted by Usher is the importance of job seekers to dress professionally.  He indicated that on many occasions, employers are turned off by the presentation of applicants.  Love News understands that the Ministry of Labour will be a key player in Saturday’s job fair as they will be on hand to assist applicants with job letters and resumes.

Andrew Usher, Public Relations Manger, BCCI: “We encourage job seekers to be more proactive because there is a standard that we would like people to come to the event with. We want you to come dressed to impress. Make sure you bring your  CVs, your resume, your cover letter. These are the things that you need physically as well as electronically.  And if you feel like if you’re not up to par in terms of having your documents ready, the Ministry of Labour is going to be out there. They have a team that will be able to assist you to revise these.  One of our sponsors, who is Smart, they’re actually providing Wi-Fi for the event. They’re the exclusive provider of Wi-Fi for the event and we are encouraging people to have electronic documents readily available so that if you need to download them and do revisions, the Ministry of Labour is going to have a team out there ready to assist you.”

Saturday’s job fair will take place at the Belize Civic Center starting at ten o’clock.