Newsroom@DominionPost.com
CHARLESTON — Hundreds of transportation workers were hired in 2021 because of aggressive recruiting by the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
Since Jan. 1, the WVDOT has hired 638 new employees.
To accomplish this, the WVDOT participated in 35 job and career fairs at colleges, universities, technical centers and WorkForce West Virginia sites across the Mountain State. The WVDOT also hosted eight large-scale hiring events around the state’s 10 highways districts.
The creation of Gov. Jim Justice’s $2.8 billion Roads to Prosperity highway maintenance and construction program in 2017 created the immediate need for thousands of transportation workers, engineers, equipment operators, bridge inspectors, administrators and others who would be needed to bring the governor’s vision to fruition.
Knowing those workers would be needed — and needed fast — the WVDOT worked closely with Justice and the West Virginia Legislature to pass a law allowing the department to develop its own job-posting, interviewing and hiring procedures. The new hiring procedures revolutionized the department’s ability to get job applicants on the job quickly and efficiently.
Under the old hiring system, the WVDOT could only advertise positions one at a time, and it could take four to six months for an applicant to start work.
Under the streamlined hiring procedures, the WVDOT can post multiple positions at once. Dozens of applicants can be seen during a single hiring event.
The hiring events are an important part of filling positions fast. WVDOT can now hire someone to fill a position within two weeks of a hiring event.
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