T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Nearly 115 employers set up shop Thursday at the seventh annual OhioMeansJobs Job Fair at the Ohio Valley Mall.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — OhioMeansJobs set out to shake things up this year by changing the hours of its annual job fair on Thursday.

The seventh annual event took place at the Ohio Valley Mall and was moved to an earlier time this year to help accommodate high school students who have already entered or are just about to enter the workforce.

“We changed (to) 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. this year, trying to accommodate some of the local high schools. So if they have seniors graduating who don’t have a plan yet, or maybe even juniors, whatever grade, looking for employment, it’d be a good opportunity,” Workforce Supervisor Mike Schlantz said. “They could bring the students out here and get them here at 10 a.m. and back by the end of the day to accommodate the buses.”

He added that he believes that the time change was successful, since several local schools bused students to the mall for the job fair.

Schlantz said that nearly 115 area businesses, agencies and trade providers were in attendance on Thursday in hopes of filling positions, which made it the biggest job fair yet.

The mall was filled with various employers, including representatives of retail, law enforcement, banking, food service, health care, finance, security, transportation, manufacturing, military and more.

“We have a nice variety of employers. We have manufacturing, food service, retail, health care, finance, banking, oil and gas, and transportation, so just a little bit of everything,” Schlantz said.

He added that he thinks the decision to move the job fair to the Ohio Valley Mall a few years ago was the right choice to allow the fair to continue to grow. It originally was held at the St. Clairsville J.B. Martin Recreation Center, but the event outgrew the capacity of the rec center and has since moved to the mall to accommodate the large turnout.

He said that in addition to having ample space to grow, it’s also a way to give the businesses located inside the mall a boost on a weekday morning, which usually isn’t prime time for shoppers.

In addition to the job fair, OhioMeansJobs is able to provide resources to residents throughout the year who are in need of employment.

“On a daily basis, if people are looking for work they can come to our job center, because we have employers post jobs for us. And also, all these employers here, they’re still looking for people after today. So if someone comes to our job center tomorrow, they can look at our job board, and we can give them the list of all these employers that were here. And if they want to contact them, we can tell them how to do that. But then, being here today, you have all these employers at one location at one time, so it’s a good opportunity for a job seeker to come and hit a lot of companies and see what’s out there and do some networking in one location,” Schlantz said.

For more information, call OhioMeansJobs at 740-579-0379 or visit its office at 302 Walnut St. in Martins Ferry.