Eastern Kentuckians who want to get on the fast track toward legitimate, full-time, full-benefits work-at-home job opportunities for Cincinnati Bell will be able to meet face-to-face with operations, training, and recruiting managers at a special “meet and greet” informational event set for Saturday in Hazard.

Representatives of StarTek—Cincinnati Bell’s customer care and call center services vendor—will be at the Kentucky Career Center Perry County JobSight at 412 Roy Campbell Drive from 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, to meet about 50 of the company’s current telework employees recruited from Eastern Kentucky.

Anyone else from the public interested in teleworking for the company in customer service, sales and retention, and tech support positions can also attend Saturday’s event, according to Joshua Ball, manager of Kentucky Teleworks, which recruited, screened, and provided about half of those 50 employees to the company.

“What they like about us is the Eastern Kentucky work ethic,” Ball said. “They like the fact that people come in to work and they’re going to give you eight hours of everything they’ve got.

“They look beyond these mountains and statistics and see we’ve got a great workforce, and they want to do their best to tap into that.”

A service of the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), Kentucky Teleworks is helping EKCEP meet its mission of “jobs for people … people for jobs” by identifying and developing valid work-from-home opportunities by partnering with employers, and then helping Eastern Kentuckians prepare for and land these jobs.

EKCEP is particularly excited about the new StarTek positions with Cincinnati Bell because they’re providing new job opportunities for experienced call center workers who lost their jobs when various centers in the region either closed or downsized, according to Executive Director Jeff Whitehead.

“Our Eastern Kentucky workers have the experience they’re looking for, and we’re more than happy to serve as a direct conduit to Cincinnati Bell to help them get these employees,” Whitehead said.

Ball said StarTek plans to hire 50 additional employees from the region by the end of November, and he plans that the majority of these 50 new hires will derive from the Kentucky Teleworks system. The positions for Cincinnati Bell pay around $10 per hour and offer full benefits, he added.

“People who attend Saturday are going to be able to fast-track their application process because they’re going to get to talk to recruiters on-site and make a good first impression,” Ball said. “People can bring a resume with them and get their foot in door for what may be their next career.”

Kentucky Teleworks requires that applicants have a distraction-free space for a home office with high-speed Internet access.

Potential applicants from Hazard and the surrounding area who may not yet have high-speed Internet or computer equipment at home also will have the option to telework at the new Kentucky Teleworks incubator at the Kentucky Career Center Perry County JobSight. As many as 20 teleworkers will be able to work at that location at any given time.

The full slate of the service’s current telework job opportunities can be found on its website at www.kentuckyteleworks.com.

For more information about Kentucky Teleworks, visit www.kentuckyteleworks.com, call Josh Ball at (606) 435-8498, or email jball@kyteleworks.com. Find Kentucky Teleworks on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kentuckyteleworks and EKCEP at www.facebook.com/ekcep.