News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville Regional Medical Center will try to fill some of its 400+ jobs Tuesday at a job fair.
The event is a joint venture of the American Job Center and UC Workforce Development. It is an attempt to reach out to those who are not currently a member of the job force across the region. Cookeville Regional Interim CEO Buffy Key said it’s about taking a fresh look at hiring…and people.
“When we sat down several years ago and developed our mission and vision for Cookeville Regional Medical Center, our mission is building healthier communities,” Key said. “We were thinking about health care, we were thinking about the health of the community. But in reality, when you’re talking about building healthier communities, we need to also look at lifting people up out of their situation and helping them. Never before have I really taken this kind of look at things more so than now. I think it’s a different time.”
Those interested in a job can show up with a resume and ready to interview from 9am to 4pm Tuesday at 1000 England Drive. Key said CRMC will be hiring on the spot.
“Employers don’t need people that are going to training in 18 months, they need people right now,” Becky Hull of the American Job Center said. “They need people to provide services. So we were looking at how we could partner. And this has been a great opportunity.”
Key said jobs stretch across many facets of the medical center’s operations, as the facility is its own little community. She said Cookeville Regional will be competitive both with salaries and benefits.
“There are some hospitals that are down the road that are paying a lot more than we ever thought that they would for different things,” Key said. “That’s the market today. So we want to compete with that. We want to compete with those folks that are getting out of school. We don’t want them to drive 20 more miles somewhere else to work when they can work local in their community.”
Hull said she hopes the CRMC Job Fair can be a new job model for the American Job Center where they find local business partners willing to look at employees that might have had issues in the past.
