While the pandemic hasn’t allowed the Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF) to conduct their in-person high school and college transportation student career fair events this school year, CREF has been electronically gathering hundreds of collision student resumes of those who are currently looking for full/part-time employment. The goal is to help address the industry’s issue of an aging workforce and desperate need for entry-level staff. CREF has initially provided the student resume database to their industry partners and is now broadening the distribution to other industry contacts and associations.
“We look forward to safely gathering crowds at our career fair events in the future, however we didn’t want the pandemic to keep us from connecting students with industry employers,” said Brandon Eckenrode, director of development for CREF. “Also, through the national electronic student resume gathering, we aren’t limited to only helping the students in the markets where we are holding physical career fair events and can assist students from anywhere around the country. We look forward to highlighting those success stories of students gaining industry employment.”
Industry members are encouraged to work together with CREF on investing in their local high school and college collision programs to help ensure the graduating students are ready for entry-level employment. Industry members looking to connect with local collision programs and their students should contact CREF Development and Marketing Coordinator Tiffany Bulak at [email protected].
