Hiring Day at Coosa County Career Tech Center
Hiring Day was a culmination of various preparation activities our students have been involved in throughout the school year. Students have been introduced to the complete hiring process that started with creating a resume, followed by completing applications (both pen and paper style and online) and moved forward with preparing for interviews by researching companies and organizing thoughts on how to best present oneself during an interview.
In March, Career Coach Keslie Garrett further prepared students for Hiring Day by scheduling mock interviews for our juniors, seniors and auto services students of all ages. Thankfully the Coosa County Career Tech Center (CCCTC) has a large circle of friends who are always willing to help when we call on them, and this time was no different. Central Alabama Works’ Modern Manufacturing Project Manager Terry Nicholas; Alexander City’s AL Career One Stop’s BSR and Career Center Manager Penny Pratt and Rhonda Walker; Alabama National Guard recruiter, SSG James Robertson; AL Department of Rehabilitation Services’ Alan Yates and Aethea Camp; Empowered to Conquer’s Brittany Hogan and Tre’ Miller; Central Alabama Community College Career Coach Ed Allen; Coosa County Extension Office’s Taitha Gassburn; and Conservation Outreach Coordinator for the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Mariann Gauldin joined us to provide our students with unscripted interviews that provided our students with an opportunity to shake their nervousness and receive thorough feedback before the real interviews took place recently.
Underclassmen students in Mr. Washington’s auto services classes who were interviewed and given simulated workplace jobs for the classroom and lab were also interviewed for transfers and promotions to new positions as part of mock interview day.
Recently, many of the area businesses that will be hiring our students for summer jobs, as well as our upcoming graduates for full-time positions, gathered at CCCTC for the Hiring Day. Our students completed 65 interviews showing that the work they have been putting in with Mrs. Garrett and the mock interviews they had the previous week had made a difference in how they showcased the skills and knowledge they have learned throughout their years at Central.
Ms. Hamby, CCCTC director, said, “The CCCTC faculty and staff are SO PROUD of how well our students represented themselves and CCCTC during these interviews. Feedback from business representatives like ‘We came with directives to hire four students, but we are going back to request to be able to hire six for sure and maybe even eight if we can talk them into it for summer along with two full-time and one apprenticeship offer,’ ‘Oh my, I came hoping that we would have up to four strong candidates to choose from, but I’m going to go back and see if we can’t find a way to give all of them a chance because of how well they did and all of their experience from their Auto Services Program,’ ‘We only needed two more for the one group and one more for the other group, but we may have to do some rethinking of some of the other candidates because some of these students presented themselves as more qualified,’ or ‘I knew you had a good program going, but I wasn’t expecting to see this many students able to give such strong interviews and talk about such great work experience they have gained from the classroom and lab activities,’ and the kicker, ‘I think we are probably going to be able to place them all (that we interviewed today),’” she said.
Mrs. Hamby added, “These comments have us beaming with pride and our students anxiously awaiting job offers. We can’t wait to see what the next few weeks hold.”
Businesses joining us for interviews included SAFE, O’Reilly Auto, Childersburg Parks and Rec Department, Auto Zone, Prime Management LLC Healthcare, Madix, and Auburn University.
An additional 35 interviews will take place with Malibu Electronics, the Alabama Department of Transportation, Russell Medical, and Express Oil Change who will be coming to our CCCTC campus for interviews with students in the near future. In total, that is almost twice as many interviews as our students had at last year’s Hiring Day.
Thank you again to the students, faculty, staff, volunteer, and business representatives who made the 2024 mock interviews and Hiring Day such a success. We will share information on the job offers our students receive as they roll in. If you are a human resources representative or hiring manager for an area business, please feel free to reach out to us to recruit our students. We want to provide our students with as many options and opportunities as possible, and we want to serve our business community by developing pipelines to the local workforce.
