How to Get a Good Job and Career
Want a job? There were at least seven hundred and fifty available at different levels of experience and pay scale today at Swift Hall on the compound of St. Martin de Porres R.C. School and Church. The first ever BELTRAIDE Career Fair united thirteen prominent employers in four different industries with hundreds of job-seekers in an attempt to help get future employees a foot in the door at some of Belize’s most prominent businesses. And while it was mostly about the first impression today, News Five’s Aaron Humes reports that all sides are looking for – and may have, in some cases, found – something more lasting.
Aaron Humes, Reporting
Every job seeker takes the words of singer Barrington Levy to heart: “Got to have some ambition/Keep your spirit alive/Don’t go making excuses/Just get out there and try.” These three young people did, and found what they were looking for – or the platform to keep looking in some cases.
Tamika Bradley
Tamika Bradley, Looking for a Job
“The one I was interested in particularly was the accounts clerk at the Caribbean [Shrimp Company Limited] establishment, over here, because my major is in accounting and I really need a job opportunity and I think the Career Fair this year is really a great opportunity to find a job. I have experience; not many young people have the experience that I have, because I have worked at two establishments previously; and not many young people have that experience like me. I’m a go-getter; I have confidence; I’m friendly; I’m a people person, I have good customer service skills. So I think at any position, I would fit in, for any establishment.”
Kamryn Bowman
Kamryn Bowman, Looking for a Job
“The first booth that I visited, Mahogany Bay Resort – that was the first company that attracted my attention with the field I’m in, so that is what stood out to me the most. I’m good at everything I do; I’m very hard-working. I don’t leave work undone; I make sure the job gets done. I’m good at resolving problems. Once there is something that needs to get done I make sure I do it.”
Eugene Gentle
Eugene Gentle, Looking for a Job
“I done have wah goal already that I am working towards. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to have my own studio business; ‘cause right now I am training to be a [music] producer and I can safely say that I am my own artist; but I want to be a well-structured artist and producer. So I have my own goals that I want to accomplish; but [coming] here, I think would be one of the big steps closer to my goal.”
Employers participating in today’s fair, such as Caribbean Shrimp Company Limited, Belize Electricity Limited, Mahogany Bay Resort and Infotel International praised the novel concept, which they say helps eliminate in this instance much of the legwork they used previously to advertise and recruit. They share their best tips for getting and keeping a job and impressions of today’s candidates.
Jolene Budd
Jolene Budd, Training Manager, Infotel International
“When you would get up in the morning, put your best foot forward, come out here – it’s a bit warm – it shows interest; it shows a willingness to work; it shows that people are interested, and that’s where it starts. When looking for employment, it starts with a feel, an interest, and that’s what we’re looking for. If you can come here and not have any call center experience; you can come here and not have any working experience; and still be given a shot. All of us, someone said yes to us at some point. And so that’s why we’re here – it doesn’t matter that you don’t have experience. Come. Try.”
Indira Andujar
Indira Andujar, Director of Human Resources, Mahogany Bay Resort
“We do understand the challenges of living on an island, and therefore we have prepared specific packages for the candidates that are not from San Pedro. And we stress a lot on training, employee recognition. And we as well prepare good packages for them, because we understand the fact that there is a relocation and the cost of life is a little bit higher in San Pedro due to the difficulties of transporting everything, being an island.”
Vonetta Burrell
Vonetta Burrell, Manager, Public Relations, B.E.L.
“You have to have a positive self-motivated attitude – somebody who is driven. It doesn’t really matter what position you are looking for; the fact is, regardless of what entity you are seeking employment at, a positive attitude will always get you ahead of the competition.”
Heather McIntosh
Heather McIntosh, General Manager, Caribbean Shrimp Company Limited
“I have had such a breadth of applicants today; I’m very, very impressed with the quality, the skills and experience of my applicants. I’ve had people come for the entry-level positions, which are very, very important, all the way up to managers. Everything from Bachelor’s, Master’s Degrees, right down to people that have worked in the fields for years but haven’t done the education part. So it’s actually really fantastic, because when you have so many positions to fill, if everybody comes with a Master’s Degree, that’s not really going to help me feed my shrimp, right? I have that really good mix, so it’s been really fantastic. I think BELTRAIDE did an excellent job reaching out to everyone, because we’re getting a really good breadth of candidates.”
BELTRAIDE representative Brian Lin, who says the statutory body intends to make this at least an annual event, said its role was to simply bring the two sides together – it will be up to them to do the rest.
Brian Lin
Brian Lin, Senior Manager, Investment and Development, BELTRAIDE
“Probably about half of the companies that you are seeing right now on the floor have already indicated their interest in hiring certain talent needs. So what we did is to ensure that we have what is called a critical mass in terms of the companies that are seeking to fill their talent needs, we then went further and engaged some of the clients that we have within our system. This year is certainly not intended to be an exhaustive approach because come next year it is our hope that depending on the outcome, the success of this event today, we are going to further refine and ensure that we can further expand on the benefit to the stakeholders in the country.”
Aaron Humes reporting for News Five.
