Cherokee Career Expo Attracts More Than 550 Job Seekers

March 21, 2017

The annual event also had over 400 job opportunities for attendees to explore and consider.

CANTON, GA — The Cherokee Career Expo held last week brought more than 400 job opportunities to over 500 residents who attended the annual fair.

The event, co-hosted by the Cherokee Office of Economic Development and the Georgia Department of Labor, had a total of 37 employers who were on hand to recruit talented prospects for a variety of positions.

The event began three years ago in response to the “expanding needs” of local companies, COED said.

Since these employers wanted to build an awareness for a wide variety of job opportunities, the career expo provided the perfect chance for locals to connect with the county’s expanding list of corporations.

In the last year, COED has announced the addition of Jaipur Living, Papa Johns, OECHSLER Motion (adidas SPEEDFACTORY), and Yanmar America to the already extensive list of employers in the county.

“The growth of our existing industries coupled with our new industries, has provided over 1,370 career opportunities this year alone,” said COED President Misti Martin. “We were pleased to see over 550 job seekers attend this year’s event. The work we have been doing to attract new and retain existing businesses is paying off by providing our residents an opportunity to find a new career closer to home.”

MSK Covertech Inc., a recent addition to the Cherokee 75 Corporate Park, was in attendance on Wednesday. One of the factors MSK considered when choosing the site for their North American Headquarters was Cherokee’s highly educated workforce.

“MSK Covertech appreciates local hiring events like these because our long-term strategy is to recruit talented, highly-skilled team members that currently live in Cherokee County and the surrounding area,” said Branden K. Camp, vice-president of MSK Covertech. “We hope that by offering good employment opportunities closer to home, our employees are more vested in our company’s collective future and can find better work-life balance.”

The career expo gets COED another step closer to keeping the county’s well-educated residents working in Cherokee. The results from this year’s event, so far, have been impressive.

Erin Bramblett, director of human resources for Jaipur Living, said the expo was a “huge success” for her company.

“We walked away from the event with a stack of impressive resumes of highly qualified individuals,” she added. “We already have plans to hire at least five candidates for our new facility in the Cherokee 75 Corporate Park.”

Although this year’s event has since passed, corporations like OECHSLER Motion will be looking for talented individuals as they move closer to the opening of their facility later this year.

“We identified strong candidates for our process engineer and accounting positions at the career expo,” stated Justina Brown, director of finance and administration for OECHSLER Motion. “We also have set aside some promising candidates for customer service, sales and logistics positions that will be part of our next wave of hiring.”

If you missed this year’s event, you can still take advantage of the current vacancies in Cherokee by visiting the COED website.