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Cascade Job Fair

Story by and photos by James Hill.

Kylie Penn would never miss a Cascade Job Fair. And if you are a job-seeker, she says, neither should you.

Penn is a recruiter for the Beaverton branch of Comcast Cable Corp., which has participated in the Cascade Job Fair since 2003 and has been a presenting sponsor for the event the last two years.

"We have been a long-term community partner with PCC and find that becoming more involved with our partners leads to stronger relationships, which in turn leads to stronger candidates," Penn said. "We love to come out and meet with students face-to-face and talk about the various opportunities within Comcast.

"The job fair is absolutely of high value, which is one of the reasons that we have chosen to be a sponsor," she added. "The job fair is always well attended, offers an ideal location and we always meet students who have been a great match for the qualifications, skills, experience and schedules that we are looking to hire for."

Nearly 100 employers will be the featured at this year's Portland Community College 11th annual Cascade Job Fair. The fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6, in the Physical Education Building gym at the Cascade Campus, 705 N. Killingsworth St. The event is free and open to the public. Many employers recommend that job fair attendees go to the job fair's web site and apply online to the employers they are interested in visiting with, before coming to the fair. Last year's job fair attracted 99 employers and more than 1,900 job seekers.

"PCC Cascade's job fair is an outstanding opportunity for employers, students and community members to connect," said DeAnne Hardy, PCC co-operative education and student employment specialist. "This particular job fair draws a very diverse pool of applicants and a broad range of employers representing many different industries. Nearly all of PCC's 60 professional technical programs can find at least one employer related to their degree or certificate."

Penn's role with Comcast is to be out in the community actively promoting career opportunities at the company. This entails developing external relationships within the community to seek quality candidates. Additionally, it is important in her role to foster internal relationships with the hiring managers and supervisors in order to understand what they are looking for in a candidate.

And, she would advise anybody searching for a job to not miss the Cascade Job Fair.

"Job fairs are a great way to go out and meet employers face-to-face," Penn said. "In this new age where applications and resumes are all submitted on-line, it is often hard to make yourself stand out amidst the hundreds of other applicants or résumés that employers see on a daily basis. I would strongly encourage anyone who is actively seeking employment or anyone who will be in the near future to get to a job fair. Make sure you present yourself to potential employers as if it were a job interview and network with the people you meet, because you just never know when that perfect job or company is around the corner."

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Related Pages:

Cascade Career Fair , Feature: 2006 Career Fair, Feature: 2007 Career Fair