Cove holds first-ever in-house job fair to fill city vacancies

Killeen Daily Herald
By John Clark Herald correspondent
January 28, 2023

COPPERAS COVE – A steady stream of job-seekers went through a meeting room Saturday at the city library where Copperas Cove officials were conducting their first-ever in-house job fair in an effort to fill positions in a number of different departments.

Jeff Davis, director of human resources for the city, said Copperas Cove normally employs 310 to 320 people, and right now there are 34 vacant jobs that have been surprisingly hard to fill over the past two years.

“Like everybody else, we’re having a hard time keeping jobs filled,” Davis said. “Not just our city, but every city around here. It’s like a merry-go-round. We’ll hire them and then five days later, 10 days later, they go somewhere else. Or we’ll call them up, hire them, do the background check, and say, ‘Show up on Monday,’ and they never show.

“I don’t know if it’s because the unemployment benefits are good, or if they’re just not really ready to go back to work just yet. We’ve gone to other job fairs, sent our people there, and they try to (hire) our people ... so we thought it might be a good idea to have a job fair in-house, that was just for the city to invite people from the local area. The directors and supervisors are here that would be their actual bosses, so they can ask questions and get the skinny on what’s actually going to happen when they come here.”

City departments represented at the job fair included the fire department, police department, parks and recreation, wastewater collection, solid waste department, streets and drainage. Davis said the early turnout was promising as people made their way around the room, with some filling out applications on-line at a computer station.

One of those who visited the job fair Saturday morning was Gabriel Robinson, a Cove resident for 3½ years, who said he is looking for a job but has had trouble finding work partly because of a fairly recent arrest.

“Even though I got arrested here in Copperas Cove, I came in to be honest and show that I am trying to improve myself,” the 40-year-old father of one said. “I’m all about being honest. I just talked to the director (human resources) about my situation, and I feel like working for the city, I could make a career out of it.

“My 19-month-old daughter just lost her mom four months ago, so now it’s just me taking care of her. I’m a CDL driver, so I’m considering something working the highways, working the streets. I’ve done that before in Austin, so I know about working on highways, how to set up roadblocks, stuff like that. So the street department, or parks and recreation … something where I can be close by so I can take care of my daughter.

“It’s definitely hard, because you’re trying to work around your schedule and your child’s schedule. If I didn’t have a kid, it would be different, but it’s hard trying to keep up with her appointments and everything else, when it’s just me.”