The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
‘No experience required’
Conn. employers staffing up from rock bottom
With another job fair on deck to help Abilis staff up for critical positions, CEO Amy Montimurro found a moment of bemusement in recounting how one colleague has generated a little income on the side — swathing the family car with an ad for Amazon jobs in Connecticut, in exchange for a monthly stipend.
Give Amazon credit — using all means at its considerable disposal, it had 700 fewer job openings heading into the week of Black Friday compared with a month earlier.
In an effort to boost its own success in hiring, Abilis is turning 75 vehicles into traveling billboards by affixing magnets that tout job opportunities for the social services it provides to people with disabilities and their families. Montimurro
said the hiring campaign was necessitated in part due to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate that resulted in some employees choosing to leave rather than submit to the shot or weekly testing.
Montimurro said it has been particularly difficult to find people willing to work
late-night shifts helping Abilis clients in the home, and job coaches for daytime work some of those clients have with Connecticut employers.
“We’re teaching a lot of life skills where you don’t need that much experience — you do need that empathy and that heart to want to help somebody else,” Montimurro said. “Those are our most difficult positions — maybe it’s because of the hours, or the hands-on approach that’s needed for these individuals to be successful.”
Across Connecticut, employers are having success in filling some positions, and struggles with others. In October, the Connecticut Department of Labor calculated companies posted more than 100,000 open jobs.
Registered nurses remain the single job in biggest demand in Connecticut, according to The Conference Board’s weekly Help Wanted Online index published by DOL. With nearly 5,600 job openings in October, hospital systems incuding Yale New Haven Health, Hartford Healthcare and Trinity Health continue to hire nurses.
Yale New Haven Health’s Dori Manner heads to work each day with hundreds of
newly available jobs to fill in her role as executive director of talent acquisition, many not requiring any type of health license, such as cleaners and kitchen staff.
“We don’t ‘post and pray,’” Manner said Friday. “We do LinkedIn feeds. We go to tons of career fairs. We do a lot of work with community programs across the state into Rhode Island, to let them know about the opportunities that we have.”
Other Connecticut jobs most in demand include package sorting and delivery with more than 4,100 openings heading into October — Amazon having chipped into that significantly since then — as well as retail sales and commercial vehicle drivers.
With substitute teachers and school paraprofessionals a growing need as COVID-19 infections creep upward anew, a staffing agency filling slots for the Norwalk Public Schools set just about as low threshold as it could for a barrage of Thursday afternoon online job fairs through year-end: No experience required.
Hundreds of more recruiters in Connecticut are scrapping experience as a prerequisite, accepting on the task of training people new to the industry to get reinforcements in place for staffs that in some instances are getting stretched thin.
It is old hat for the real estate brokerage industry, which often fills out its agency ranks with hires of people new to the profession, but who exhibit traits that can lead to annual pay well in excess of $100,000 for some.
“People get to different points in their career paths where they are at a crossroads,” said Mike Schlott, president of Page Taft Compass with offices in Essex, Guilford and Madison. “More often than not, we are getting people who have had at least one or two careers beforehand.”
He added, “Nurses and teachers make great Realtors, because they know how to listen, they know how to convey complicated subjects and they have empathy.”
Empathy is a target trait for Abilis as well as it kicks off a weeklong job fair next Monday at its Greenwich headquarters at 50 Glenville Street, with walk-ins welcome for on-the-spot interviews.
But Montimurro also values other characteristics cited by The Conference Board including strong communication skills, and instincts for customer service and teamwork. She says there are people from all walks of life who may not realize they are a fit for what Abilis offers — a stance any number of other companies are promoting as they look to fill out their Connecticut ranks.
“We have a pretty rigorous training program and one-on-one training,” Montimurro said. “We really focus on a career path — I’ve been here 25 years.”