Less than two hours into Perry County JobSight’s job fair for International Coal Group (ICG), the event already qualified as “a huge success,” according to Buddy Johnston, regional human resources manager for ICG’s Kentucky operations.

Johnston admitted he originally had hoped the day-long job fair would simply go over well. He was surprised and “extremely pleased” that nearly 200 job seekers gathered at the JobSight workforce center at the L.K.L.P. Community Action Council to participate.

“We’ve done other job fairs, but not in conjunction with the JobSight until now,” Johnston said. “We’ve never had a turnout like we had with this one, and I don’t think we would have had the same success if we had only advertised it ourselves.”

The event was held to help ICG find miners for its Flint Ridge Mine near the Perry-Breathitt county line. The company expects to hire in excess of 200 miners over the next year to staff underground mines in Breathitt and Knott counties that are expanding to meet growing coal production demands, Johnston said.

“Hopefully, we can fill all 200 from (the fair),” Johnston said. “We’ll take as many out of it as we can.”

Prospective miners—both experienced and inexperienced—began filing into the JobSight before 7 a.m. on the day of the fair. Jack Duff, manager of the Perry County JobSight, helped lead the applicants through the day’s busy schedule, which included completing a comprehensive job application, taking a 30-minute mechanical aptitude test, and meeting with Johnston and Tony Osborne, another ICG human resources staff member.

“It was an overwhelming success,” Duff said. “ICG never had this many people come to a job fair before.”

The Perry County JobSight is part of the JobSight network of workforce centers operated in 23 eastern Kentucky counties by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP). JobSight “one-stop” workforce centers give job seekers and employers access to over a dozen state and federal employment and training programs and employer services at a single location.

Duff said the job fair’s success can be attributed to the objective of EKCEP’s business services: to assist both sides of the workforce equation. He said the majority of the applicants were already registered as active job seekers in the JobSight’s database.

“We told them over the last six weeks that they should come out to the fair, and most of them did,” Duff said. “Our function is to connect job seekers and employers, so the system worked exactly like it’s supposed to.”

Jennifer Thacker, who oversees EKCEP’s network of one-stop workforce centers, agreed.

“We’re really the middleman to bring all these folks together,” said Thacker, who helped host the event. “We’re trying to help job seekers find the great employer they need, and help employers find the right employees to meet their staffing needs.”

The next step for the applicants is an additional round of interviews with ICG representatives, which also will be held at the JobSight.

Some experienced miners could go straight to work for ICG, Johnston said. Many of the inexperienced miners will begin working at ICG through the on-the-job training (OJT) program, another of EKCEP’s employer services, he added. The miners will work and get hands-on training as if they were full-time employees, and the OJT program will help ICG cover a portion of the trainees' salaries during the training period.

Duff stressed the fact that the services JobSight provided to ICG are available to all employers in the region, regardless of their type of industry or business.

“We will do job fairs for any employer,” he said. “Our services are open to them all.”

For additional information on the JobSight network or EKCEP’s employer services, call EKCEP Business Solutions Manager Crawford Blakeman at 606-436-5751, or go to the website www.jobsight.org.