Adecco hosted its first ever Graduate Interview event Wednesday at George Rogers Clark High School.

The interviews took place within the Area Technology Center.

Eleven businesses in Winchester registered for the event including Dean Builds, GenCanna, Mansea Metal, Les Electrical Service, Sekisui, Winchester Farms Dairy, Freeman Corporation, JWI Construction, Superior Building Concepts, PMI Precision Mechanical and Catalent Pharma Solutions.

These businesses were interested in meeting, interviewing and potentially make job offers to seniors before graduation.

Eight students ended up applying for job positions with four of those companies: Dean Builds, GenCanna, Mansea Metal and Les Electrical Service. So these four companies were able to interview with students Wednesday.

In preparation for the interviews, Adecco conducted Career Preparation Workshops with those students.

Adecco visited classes to engage potential students and encourage them to apply. Then Adecco met with them on-site at GRC to prep them for interviewing and career success. The businesses were able to show up, receive a schedule of students to interview, receive their applications and resume and interview students for real job positions.

Adecco and the school system partnered to coordinate the event and make it simple for the employers.

Barrett Bridgewater, program manager at Adecco, said only eight students applied because the overwhelming majority of seniors from the career pathways (mechanics, welding, industrial maintenance, carpentry, etc.) at ATC already had plans after graduation.

Students who participated in Wednesday’s event included William Brooks, Palmer Wilson, Quinton Booner, Phillip Childers, Connor Smith, Peter Kovalic, Alan Hernandez and Lucius Velaquez.

The overwhelming majority of seniors already had accepted job offers, enlisted in the military or have been accepted into college, Bridgewater said.

“That means employers recognize the value of Career Technical Education and the readiness of these students to enter the workforce straight out of high school,” Bridgewater said. “However, most of those job offers came from companies outside of Winchester, so we as a community lose our talented next-generation workforce to competing localities and cities. These 10 companies here in Winchester are willing to make offers and keep talent right here in Winchester, but we realized that we need to be doing these interviews much earlier in the year.”

Bridgewater said many of those students received job offers from the companies where they had an internships during their senior year. For Winchester companies to attract our talented seniors, they will likely need to compete by offering co-ops and internships themselves.

Adecco’s Youth Employment Solutions exists to help companies do that.

Bridgewater said it was good for these employers to come into the high school, meet the principals, meet the teachers and learn more about these great students.

“We want our local employers to be the first choice for our graduating seniors,” Bridgewater said. “If we tweak the timing, help develop the relationships further and open it up to the entire senior class much earlier we are confident we will have more students engaged for all 11 employers and more to interview interested students.”

Bridgewater said some job offers may be made from this event, and next year, Adecco only plans to make it even bigger and better.