This week, Spokane Falls Community College’s (SFCC) annual career fair hosted its largest turnout since the COVID pandemic, bringing about 50 employers to campus. Representatives from the region’s major credit unions, home healthcare providers, hospital systems, nonprofits, camps, newspapers, and more, gathered to make connections with students looking for everything from summer jobs to careers in their field of study.
“As a community college, workforce training is a big part of what we do,” said Chris Pelchat, SFCC’s Dean of Business and Workforce Development. “At SFCC, we have a large proportion of students in programs designed to transfer to four-year universities—but many students do end up going straight into the workforce after they graduate.”
While Spokane Community College (SCC) is well known for its hands-on technical programs in healthcare and manufacturing, SFCC has its own approach to career-oriented programs. SFCC offers specialized technical programs like Orthotic and Prosthetic Technology, Hearing Instrument Specialist, and Audio Engineering, as well as business, Information Technology, and administrative programs that support employers across healthcare, finance, nonprofit, and manufacturing.
“When we go to the career fair at SCC, we get a lot more students interested in jobs working on the ambulance, because SCC has an EMT program,” said a representative of American Medical Response (AMR), which had a booth at the SFCC fair. “But every company needs bookkeepers, HR people, business people, IT people—even ambulance companies.”
Jesse Tinsley, Photojournalist for the Spokesman-Review, staffed the newspaper’s booth at the fair. “We’re here to talk to people about photography, writing, journalism,” said Tinsley, who is a community college graduate himself. “I thought I wanted to go into agricultural machinery, but after lying under a tractor with drips going on my face and straw going down my neck, I decided to go back to school,” he said.
Tinsley’s interest in talking with students about professional photography demonstrates that even programs in the arts, which are not always considered job-focused, can lead to fulfilling careers.
Pelchat said that career fairs like this one benefit both students and employers, and the increasing participation by employers in part reflects evolving attitudes toward associate’s degrees. “Employers understand the value of a two-year degree,” he said. “And in Spokane there are plenty of good paying jobs that don’t require a bachelors.”