Job fairs are a fairly common event, allowing companies and potential employees an opportunity to meet and exchange interests and needs to fill openings and gain employment.
A job fair geared specifically toward construction jobs, however, is an event of a different T-square.
The Construction Management Student Association from the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College addressed these needs last Tuesday at the Dulles Expo Center, bringing together almost 30 companies from across Northern Virginia with more than 150 prospective employees for their first Construction Industry Job Fair.
“I’ve been managing the CMSA program and there was a group of students very interested in doing some extra activities that we couldn’t do in a regular classroom,” said Denise Cantwell, director of the CMSA program and organizer of the job fair.
“This is a two-fold idea,” she said. “We wanted to get the fact that Northern Virginia Community College has these [construction] programs out to the public who might not know, and also to provide companies with the opportunity to help them with their employment needs,” Cantwell said.
THE 26 COMPANIES at the job fair all have positions available, she said, and were collecting resumes, scheduling interviews and handing out business cards.
“These are all kinds of positions, construction managers, laborers, equipment operators, engineers, surveyors, computer aided drafting technicians,” she said. “If it’s related to construction, it’s here.”
The demand for construction jobs in Northern Virginia goes beyond a need for carpenters and dry wall finishers for remodeling, Cantwell said, and includes major infrastructure jobs like the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project.
“We’re in a very active region for construction,” she said. “If you’re involved in construction, there’s not reason you shouldn’t be working.”
From the time the doors opened, the CMSA students and organizers were pleasantly surprised with the attendance.
“I’ve talked to a couple presenters and they’re delighted with the people coming through,” said student Guner Gery. “It was our biggest concern, that we wouldn’t get the right kind of people in or that no one would come. But the first person who came in the door was here for two hours and said it was fantastic,” she said.
“THERE’S A PROGRAM at NOVA that is strictly associated with the work we do,” said Milton Villa, a representative with ECS, LLC, Mid-Atlantic, an engineering firm in Chantilly.
He was happy to have the chance to “recruit students that are in the field and may be graduating with a civil engineering degree,” he said. “We want to give them the opportunity to work with a good company.”
ECS is “a big operation with over 120 technicians,” Villa said, and people are either changing companies or getting promoted frequently, so positions are almost always available.
Within the first two hours, he had seen “a fair amount of candidates and got a few resumes, so the mission is somewhat accomplished,” and was encouraged by a few of the people he’d met.
ECS is currently looking for entry-level and senior engineering technicians. The company does provide tuition reimbursement for employees who return to school for training and advancement, which leads to advancement opportunities within the company, he said. Starting salary for an entry-level technician, depending on experience, is in the $9 to $10 range, Villa said.
A few tables down, Kevin Smith of Calvert-Jones Inc., a heating/air-conditioning company based in Alexandria was searching for qualified technicians to join his team.
“We’re a mechanical contracting company, we do heating, ventilation, air conditioning, essentially anything with pipes,” he said. “We were chosen as the number one HVACR industry in the region in The News,” an industry magazine that ranks companies throughout the country.
AT THE JOB FAIR, Calvert-Jones was looking for “plumbers, HVAC technicians, project managers,” Smith said. “I’ve talked to about three dozen people already and I’ve got contact information for about a dozen of them. Maybe one-third of the people I’ve talked with I might be able to do something with.” Positions for welders and auto mechanics are also available.
It is very important, Smith said, to make sure that he recruits the right sort of people for the jobs Calvert-Jones has available because the work involved demands attention to detail.
“Some of our jobs are pretty significant and can last four or five years with pretty intensive work,” he said. “Some jobs need people right away, so we’ll keep contact information in a database and call people who might not be right for a long-term job to help us out.”
He said the job fair was a “good networking tool,” allowing for the creation of a dialogue between his company and some contractors and builders at the job fair for future projects. Starting salaries range depending on experience and any licenses a person holds but can begin in the $7 to $8 per hour range on the lowest end of the scale. For qualified workers who stay with the company for several years, the earning potential rises.
“We’ve got guys who make close to $30 per hour,” Smith said. “This can be a very lucrative field.”
While there is currently no shortage of employees at Calvert-Jones, it can be difficult to find potential workers with the licenses and qualifications needed for certain projects.
“In this field it’s difficult to find workers because the ones with the licenses we want are already gainfully employed,” Smith said.
“This is a great opportunity for us, especially if you can get your hands on individuals who may or may not know what opportunities are out there in construction,” he said.
STEVE TURNER AND Richard Baggs from Precision Doors & Hardware in Alexandria were at the job fair looking for people interested in construction that were not quite right for the building part of the industry.
“We don’t actually build anything,” Baggs said.
“We’re suppliers and subcontractors,” Turner said.
Precision Doors and Hardware need to find “good, qualified people to sell products to the construction industry, including commercial doors, frames, hardware. We haven’t been getting any luck advertising in the papers,” so attending the job fair seemed like a good idea, Baggs said.
“We’re looking for people ready to go to work, people who are looking to get into construction and get their hands dirty,” he said.
The challenges of finding quality employees who are trained and ready to work is compounded by the low unemployment rate in Northern Virginia, Turner said.
“We’re dying for people,” he said. “It’s difficult to find qualified applicants in a tight labor market.”
Currently, Precision Doors & Hardware is looking for estimators for doors and frames, project manager trainees for doors, frames and hardware needs. Starting salaries for these positions are in the $30,000 to $40,000 range depending on experience, Turner said, with great possibilities for advancement.
“Management positions can make six figure salaries if they work hard. Estimator positions have great room for growth and we do have two branch offices, so there’s that possibility too,” he said.
Those looking for jobs, or trying to determine their place in the construction industry, were both encouraged and deterred from their job search through the job fair.
PATRICIA ZANATE, a current NOVA student, went to the job fair to see what possibilities were available for her in what has traditionally been a man’s field.
“I want to know what’s out there, especially for women, and I thought it would be a good idea to see what’s available,” she said.
After talking with various employers for over an hour, she had received mixed results.
“From what I hear there’s not much out there, but they are encouraging me to get out there,” Zanate said. “There are jobs available for women, but it’s harder to find them and you have to be willing to tough it out. The construction field can be very lucrative if you can do it, and if men can, why can’t women?” she asked.
Next year, she thinks it would be beneficial not only to the job fair but to women interested in construction jobs if more were done to bring women in the door.
“I just came to get some information,” she said. “I’m going to go over what I have and try to contact some companies and interview them before I decide which field I want to go into.”
Although she didn’t get the encouragement she was hoping to find, Zanate said two companies did urge her to enter the construction industry.
“I’ve heard it’s tough for women but I think it’s worth giving a shot.”
Marshall Cottingham, a student at Chantilly Academy, was at the job fair as a part of his construction technology program.
“I talked to Hensel Phelps Construction and American Infrastructure before, but other than that I’m just perusing the companies,” he said. “It’s very encouraging. I would never want a desk job, I like to work outside.”
He hopes to become a project manager one day and having the opportunity to talk with several companies at once was “a good idea.”
Steven Paska and Jake Brandenburg, seniors at Chantilly High School, were also checking out the job scene at the fair, hoping to get a head start on finding a summer job.
“I’ve always been pretty good at math so construction might be something I want to look into,” Brandenburg said.
“What I know about construction so far is not from job experience but classroom stuff,” said Paska, who has taken physics, BC calculus and engineering systems classes in school.
“DOING THINGS LIKE this now will pay off in the future,” Brandenburg said. “It’s good to find out about what jobs are out there now so you can go to college and take the right classes to get the job you want.”
Paska agreed, adding, “you don’t want to waste four years in school and then find out you don’t like the job.”