Goulburn Valley Health was buoyed by a strong turnout at its jobs open day on Wednesday, March 29.
The health service is short nearly 600 roles, including more than 50 support jobs in areas such as catering, cleaning, security and more, and held an open day to try to bring in members of the community looking for work.
GV Health organisational development manager Michael Reed spoke to the News an hour into the four-hour event, which had already seen more than 100 people come through, with a solid number of people applying for jobs on the day.
“It was much bigger than we expected, the weather helped but the amount of advertising and engagement we did with the community all really helped,” Mr Reed said.
“We’ve got a number of vacancies, we’re not going to lie about that, across GV Health.
“The challenge we’ve got is the vacancy rate we’re carrying and still providing a high level of care with the amazing staff we have.”
Mr Reed said it was the first time GV Health had held a local open day for the community to apply for jobs.
“Today’s about thinking about what else can we do beyond the normal to help engage directly with the community,” he said.
He said he was not expecting a brain surgeon to walk in off the street — but wouldn’t turn one down.
“We would love one, we wouldn’t let them leave if they did, but there’s different attraction methods for that,” he said, laughing.
“The prime aim of this was more types of roles that you can see kind of what we call support services types.”