RENO, Nev.-Politicians talk about it, but WestStar Credit Union is rapidly emerging as one of this state's biggest job creators.
The $133-million credit union has just held the fourth of its highly successful job fairs, drawing big crowds of employers and job-seekers and garnering significant local media coverage, all at a very low cost.
WestStar, which serves gaming employees from three branches in Las Vegas and one here, hosted its first job fair in Las Vegas in January of 2011 (CU Journal, Jan. 17, 2011. That event drew more than 1,000 people; a second job fair in Reno two months later that drew 3,000. But that attendance was dwarfed by the 7,000 who showed up for a third job fair earlier this year.
Mona Joseph, AVP of business development for WestStar and organizer of all four job fairs, told Credit Union Journal the second Reno event, which took place April 3, attracted the same number of job seekers as the first, approximately 3,000.
"We are calling it yet another success, and I'm as tickled as I can be," she said. "Every time we do one of these we realize something we want to do next time. More people are becoming aware of our job fair and how successful it is, and this time three companies just showed up wanting to be set up in a booth. We had to tell them they had to be invited."
Great Public Relations
As had been the case with the first three job fairs, the fourth one saw every Reno television affiliate send a representative, Joseph reported. She said in addition to the community outreach and the "great PR" generated by the job fairs, WestStar gets a benefit from doing its part to stimulate a still dreary recovery in the Silver State.
"The most valuable commodity in Nevada right now is jobs," she declared. "If you get people back to work they will start spending again, buying houses and cars. But it all starts with getting them a job."
The media outreach got an extra boost at this month's Reno job fair, Joseph continued. She called the local NBC affiliate to publicize the event, and was surprised when the network "stepped up" and asked WestStar to help promote its national campaign for generating jobs for veterans, which is known as "Hiring Our Heroes."
"We set up a special sign for veterans to have their own line," she said. "The veterans were allowed to go in first, with the rest of the crowd right on their heels. If we do this again we would let the veterans have the first 30 minutes to themselves."
The second annual Northern Nevada job fair had a total of 1,800 jobs available from 22 companies, Joseph said. In addition to casinos around Reno, the list of employers included Barrick Gold, a mining company based in Elko, Nev., a four-hour drive away.
"We had the same number of people as last year, but this time they did not line up as early," she recalled. "About 700 people came in when we first opened the doors, and the crowds flowed nicely throughout the day. The first 1,000 through the doors got a 'Job Seeker' bag. Our list of companies included Amazon.com. We thought it was a real coup to get a big company at our job fair."
According to Joseph, one company had 200 positions available and told her it found 500 people it liked and was confident it would fill all 200 spots. Amazon had 300 seasonal positions and was confident it filled at least one-third of them. Grand Sierra Resort, which was a co-sponsor of the event and donated the ballroom, said it filled all 78 available positions.
"All in all, 500 people got a job as a direct result of this job fair," she said.
Total out-of-pocket expense for WestStar was $130 spent on snack bags and bottles of water for the HR people manning the booths.
Lessons Learned
Next year WestStar will place flyers in the job seeker bags to let people know how to prepare for a job fair, Joseph said.
"People have 30 seconds to make a good impression. Eighty percent of the people who showed up were dressed well, but the other 20% looked like they just rolled out of bed and remembered there was a job fair that day. You can lead a person to a closet but you can't make them dress."
WestStar CU has opened its first four job fairs to pretty much any companies that have jobs available, but Joseph said changes are coming. In 2013, the plan is to make the job fairs only for companies that are SEGs of WestStar or are willing to write a letter to its board asking to become a SEG.
"We are going to persuasively suggest they become a SEG because we want the companies we work with going forward are committed to being affiliated with WestStar," she said. "The letter doesn't cost the company anything. Most of the companies we have invited already are affiliated with us, but there also are some stragglers. It won't be a deal breaker in 2013, but by 2014 it will only be for SEGs."
