Ready to Hire: Employers Discover Top Talent at Their Local Community College

The Ready Career Education campaign is helping regional employers find a cornucopia of well-trained students eager and prepared to enter the workforce — right at their local community college.

“Over 200 employers have worked with the community colleges over the last couple of years, leading to a large increase in engagement with the colleges,” says Dr. Nelky Rodriguez, a regional Employer Engagement Manager for the Inland Empire/Desert Regional Consortium (IEDRC).

Rodriguez is one of four Employer Engagement Managers who expand relationships with employers to help students secure jobs and apprenticeship opportunities.

“We proactively reach out to companies to create collaborative partnerships and opportunities for students,” Rodriguez says. In addition to maintaining open communication with employers for job placements, apprenticeships, and internships, she and her colleagues interface with employers at regular meetings, networking events, and industry roundtables to understand employer needs and how to tailor educational programs accordingly. These events have engaged more than 150 employers in the past year.

The managers work closely with community college faculty and administrators to offer a range of services to employers, including identifying prospective employees, working with employers to narrow skills gaps, developing training programs, and launching apprenticeship programs. They also organize workshops to keep faculty informed about industry trends.

Students, meanwhile, meet employers through job fairs, networking events, in-class presentations, and apprenticeship/internship programs. Career workshops offer them practical skills to ease the transition to the workforce and land the right job.

All these efforts contribute to producing a well-trained workforce for regional employers who have constant need for new hires in an ever-changing economic landscape. Not surprisingly, employers are reaping the benefits of their partnerships with local community colleges.

Rachel Hemond of Acorn Technology Services in Riverside praises what she sees from her local community college:

“The quality of candidates we’ve been getting from the community college is higher than what we get from the general public,” she says. “Basically, the community college apprenticeship program does the recruiting for us.” (See the video)

Nidal Rafeedie of Arrowhead Regional Medical Center Respiratory Care program in Colton emphasizes the rewards of mentoring community college students who can then be hired. 

“We have clinical instructors like myself who work with the students in order to get them qualified so that they can actually pass their programs,” he says. “But then at the same point, it gives us the opportunity to possibly hire [them] in the future.” (See the video)

Cyrila Richardson of The Media Lab in Temecula likes what community college hires bring to her organization.

“I think one of the benefits of hiring directly from a community college is that they have a lot of hands-on experience,” she says. “I would say about 95% of our staff have come directly from community colleges.” (See the video)

Richardson says that when her organization has job openings, they contact the professor overseeing the Digital Media Department at Mt. San Jacinto College, who shares the job opening with students who might be interested. (Read more about how The Media Lab works with local community colleges)

David Geith of Inland EMCOR Mesa Energy Systems in Chino underscores how the colleges help alleviate the pressure to fill jobs.

“We have this great need of all this work. We need the manpower,” Geith says.  “Partnering with the colleges has been really valuable to us because they’re training these young men and women, giving them a solid foundation that they can then come and work for a company like ours,” he says. (See the video)

As the employment needs of industries in the Inland Empire/Desert region continue to change at a breakneck pace, employers are finding a nimble and beneficial partner in their local community colleges.