ROCHELLE — On Thursday, March 13, the Rochelle Hiring Expo, presented by the City of Rochelle, the Rochelle Chamber of Commerce, Kishwaukee College and Rochelle Township High School was held at RTHS at 1401 E. Flagg Road.
The event was free for employers, job seekers and RTHS students. RTHS seniors and juniors participated in the event for an hour before it opened to the public. The public hiring expo event began in recent years after a workforce shortage was seen post COVID-19 and it melded well with the yearly RTHS career fair, causing the events to be combined.
Employers with booths at the event included: IBEW, State of Illinois, Zekelman Industries, Peoplelink Staffing Solutions, Clark Dietrich, Forge Resources Group, Liberty Village of Rochelle, Etnyre International, Rochelle Foods, Highlight Healthcare of Rochelle, both Rochelle school districts, 4-C Community Coordinated Child Care, Stillman Bank, CDH Educational Center, Rochelle Community Hospital, Foundation for Focus House, Momentum Healthcare, Good Will Northern IL, Lassiter Agency, Maplehurst Farms, Athletico, TOMY International Inc., Express Employment Professionals, StaffQuick, Illinois Army National Guard, Kishwaukee College, Silgan Containers, City of Rochelle Police & Fire Departments, Kunes Auto Group and Addus Home Care.
Kishwaukee College takes the lead on logistics and registration for the event. Kish Associate Vice President of College Relations LaCretia Konan said the event started off “great” with over 220 RTHS students attending, with employers impressed with students’ levels of engagement.
“It was really great to see,” Konan said. “It was packed. At the end of the job fair we'll get an evaluation from our employers that attended and they'll give us direct feedback on what they thought of the event and if there's anything we can do to improve it. Overall, there has been a steady flow of job seekers today since we opened it up to the public. We had people that were waiting for it to open. We've already exceeded the number of job seekers in comparison to last year.”
Konan said that now that the event has operated for the past few years, it has become a well-oiled machine. She thanked Kish Coordinator of Employment & Job Placement Services Laura Gregory and leadership at RTHS, the City of Rochelle and the Chamber of Commerce.
“This day and seeing everyone in this room together reminds me that the City of Rochelle is a hub and a community of opportunity,” Konan said. “The stakeholders here do a lot on behalf of their businesses and their community as a whole. When you see people show up from students to employers to job seekers, it's a very well-rounded community and the event is very well planned. It's held for the purposes of, 'How do we grow the Rochelle area? How do we help our community? How do we support our businesses?'”
Konan said she was eager to hear feedback from employers, job seekers and RTHS on how the hiring event went for them. Her hope is that hires were made and interviews were scheduled.
“Seeing all of these connections happen in real time just makes me want to work harder,” Konan said. “Every time we see things like this happen and everybody gets something out of it, it just makes us want to work harder next year. How can we make it bigger? How can we make sure more people attend? How can we make sure more people are aware of this event? Because now it's really an annual event. We're always excited to see this event come to fruition and we're really looking forward to hearing about the results and outcomes.”
