Thousands Attend City County Career Day (“C3”)

More than 4,500 people seeking careers in the building trades and other professions attended a major career fair in the City of Pittsburgh on September 18, 2007, making the event an unqualified success.

Billed as City County Career Day (“C3”), the event was organized and sponsored by the Pittsburgh/Allegheny County Sports and Exhibition Authority (SEA), the Builders Guild of Western Pennsylvania, CareerLink, Adult Basic Literacy Education and the Pittsburgh Work Force Investment Board.

Following last minute planning, set up commenced on the afternoon of September 17th, as some 250 employer and support agency booths were arranged, electricity was connected and trailers began to arrive. Even PennDOT’s 80-foot Penn Mobile rolled in from Harrisburg and was parked center-stage to assist with driver’s license and vehicle registration issues. The afternoon was capped off with a press conference with statements from Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato; Yarone Zober, chief of staff for City of Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl; Rich Stanizzo, business manager of the Pittsburgh Regional Building and Construction Trades Council; and SEA Executive Director Mary Conturo.

Volunteers from the city, county, CareerLink, building trades and contractors’ staff members dawned bright yellow C3 t-shirts, lined the aisles and readied themselves to greet, register, support, guide and assist visitors and employers. Finally, at 9:45 a.m. an announcement came over the public address speaker that hundreds of people were gathered outside waiting for the doors to open.

Throughout the five-hour event, activities were non-stop and included informational workshops to assist in resume building, acquiring GED certification and fielding a host of job seeker questions. Representatives of union building trade apprenticeship programs, the Master Builders Association, the Builders Guild and regional pre-apprenticeship programs were all on hand to meet with prospective employees, speak to them about careers in the trades, provide brochures and give demonstrations of their various crafts and skills.

Employers were impressed with the overall attendance and with the caliber of those who stopped by to inquire and discuss opportunities and careers. A majority of the individuals who visited the apprenticeship program booths seemed interested and enthusiastic and in some cases were able to sign up on-the-spot to certain apprenticeship programs.

Though measuring the success of events such as C3 can be difficult, the overall investment of effort, time, and energy mixed with a day of non-stop communication and cooperation made it clear that Western Pennsylvania is a unique community where individuals are dedicated to the region’s growth, to one another and to a quality of life that has historically made Pittsburgh one of our nation’s most livable cities.