Saint Barnabas job fair targets jobs for vets

Veterans talk to representatives of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System about employment opportunities at a job fair on July 14 at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch. KENNY WALTER Clayton Simpson is one of countless veterans trying to start a new career. That is why Simpson, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, along with many of his fellow servicemen and women, attended a job fair for veterans at Monmouth Medical Center last week.

The job fair took place on July 14 with representatives from all six of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System hospitals in New Jersey in attendance.

Ellen Green, a spokeswoman for St. Barnabas, said Monday that 51 people attended the job fair in Long Branch and 43 attended a fair in West Orange.

She said applications are still coming in from the job fair and that applications are being accepted on the website, www.sbhcscareers.com.

Saint Barnabas Vice President of Human Resources Sid Seligman said in an interview at the job fair that the goal was to try to help veterans find employment within the hospital system.

“The nation is honored by their service so we’d like to give them a leg up in general,” he said. “Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan actually have a higher unemployment rate than the general public.

“Unemployment is part of our national bane,” he added. “It is truly a national disgrace and we want to do what we can to eliminate that.”

According to a 2010 study from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics the unemployment rate among veterans who served since Sept. 11, 2001, was 11.5 percent and the unemployment rate for veterans who served in any era for the same time period was 8.7 percent.

Simpson, a Long Branch resident, spent eight months in Iraq in 2005 and said that the struggle for vets re-entering civilian life results from some not being able to adjust once they get home. “I think what it is when you have that military mindset, it is kind of hard to adapt to what people are looking for,” he said. “Most Marines are military people and that is all they know, so when they come back, they have to try to broaden their horizons.”

Simpson said that since returning home, he has earned an organizational security management degree and planned to apply for security management or even security guard jobs once he got home.

Seligman said that Saint Barnabas has several hundred jobs open and the veterans who attend the job fairs will be given a better chance at employment.

“We have over 340 full-time jobs open right now across our system,” Seligman said. “I don’t know if everyone is a perfect match but we want to fill as many as we can.”

Some of the positions available include jobs in environmental service, food services and maintenance.

There are also entry-level office positions open, such as receptionists and hospital admissions.

Some jobs, however, are more specialized and require training and education.

“Some are clerical jobs that require someone to have some health-carespecific credentials, and the service produces lots of people with those credentials,” Seligman said. “We also have jobs that don’t require those credentials, and we hope to fill those jobs.”

Seligman said that representatives of the New Jersey Department of Labor also attended the job fair to assist the veterans in their job search.

He explained the veterans would talk to staff from the hospitals as well as veterans currently working in the Saint Barnabas system. “We are going to let them talk to staff from all our hospitals throughout the system, not just the hospitals in this region,” Seligman said. “They will be able to talk to vets who work with us about working in the Saint Barnabas system.”

He said that if the veterans indicate that they’ve attended the job fair, they are eligible for preferential treatment for open positions.

At the job fair, laptops were set up so that job seekers could apply on-site, but they could also get the preferential spots if they apply online at home and indicate that they attended the fair.

Seligman explained that the idea for the veterans’ job fair arose when other avenues weren’t as successful as human resources staff had hoped.

“We’ve recently tried to make ourselves prominent in those recruitment venues that are directed at veterans with less success than we had hoped for,” he said. “That is why we decided to do a veterans’ job fair.”

Much like Simpson, Akash Desai served a tour in Iraq in 2005 with the U.S. Army and has struggled to find employment.

“The struggle is basically you have the military credentials, you have the education from the military and you have civilian education, but then since you’ve been out of the work system for so long, potential employers don’t give too much attention to you,” the Jersey City native said.

However, Desai did have praise for the job fair and said he was looking for a job in the compliance area.

“This is definitely beneficial,” he said. “It really gives veterans who feel left out the idea that someone is caring for them.

“Job fairs like these really give you a boost.”

Saint Barnabas also hosted a job fair on July 12 at the corporate office in West Orange.

Seligman said the West Orange fair was a success, adding that he expected more results from the job fair at Monmouth Medical Center because the event had been more widely advertised.

“There has been a lot more radio play in this region and we were very pleased by our experience two nights ago [July 12],” he said.

“We advertised mostly through the publications tied to the military,” he said, adding the event was also advertised in public service announcements on radio.

“This is just a way of saying thank you and giving them a leg-up in our system,” he said. “We hope people take advantage of it.”

The six hospitals in the Saint Barnabas system, in addition to Monmouth Medical Center, are Kimball Medical Center, Lakewood; Community Medical Center, Toms River; and hospitals in Livingston, Newark and Belleville.

Contact Kenny Walter at kwalter@gmnews.com.