Job Seekers Find Long Lines, Little Payoff At Fairs

Crowded job fairs are a sign of the times. About 5,000 people recently lined up for one in New York City. Another 5,000 showed up for a similar event in Miami. With unemployment at a 25-year high, job fairs have become major events in many cities — even if there aren't many jobs to be had there.

For the past four years, the Chamber of Commerce in Kernersville, N.C., has held a late winter job fair. This is the first year the town needed a team of police officers to direct traffic outside.

The job fair in Kernersville, a bedroom community between Winston-Salem and Greensboro, attracted about 1,000 people — more than double last year's attendance.

They began lining up outside before the fair started. Some worked in construction until the housing market tanked. Others had high-tech jobs, until their companies downsized. And several — such as Tim Wiley — worked in North Carolina's once-vibrant manufacturing sector, before their jobs moved overseas.

"I'm out of a job after 23 years in furniture, and been looking since November 2007," Wiley says. "Nothing's out there so far."

This job fair did little to improve the prospects for Wiley or most of the job seekers who moved from table to table inside a church activity hall. Fewer than 10 employers had positions to offer, and many of those were part-time or temporary.

Drexel High, 58, was hoping to land a sales job that pays $30,000 or more. He has experience selling jewelry and window shades. But with today's job market, he's lowered his expectations.

"I understand that at my age, I'm not the desired type," he says. "So I'll take anything as far as even entry level. I'm not afraid to clean the toilets either. All I want is a chance to compete."

High says he's been looking for work for more than a year, and he's been to a couple of job fairs. But even with his more modest expectations, he says he hasn't found anything worth pursuing.

That's not uncommon. While data is scarce on how many people find good jobs at venues like this, experts say the number likely is low. Peter Cappelli, who directs the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School of Business, says most positions available at job fairs tend to be short-term or have low salaries.

"The odds of finding a job at a job fair for the service jobs, fast food places, is pretty good, because they're hiring all the time anyway," Cappelli says. "The temporary help firms often go to these job fairs, and they're looking for people. I don't think what you're going to find at these job fairs is opportunities for people to change careers."

Still, despite the limitations of job fairs, lots of organizations continue to hold them. On the same day as the Kernersville fair, there was another at a hotel in Greensboro about 10 miles away, where hundreds more job seekers met with a dozen or so employers — including a local Wendy's franchise that was hiring crew members and managers.

The people at Wendy's took in more than 100 applications for the three or four management positions they had to offer. And many employers at the Greensboro job fair faced the challenge of poring through stacks of resumes to fill only a handful of jobs.

Jonathan Cole was looking for people to sell insurance, and quickly sized up each job seeker who stopped by.

"It's the only way you can do it with 1,000 people," Cole says. "It's really all about the first 30 seconds at the table. We just stare at them and wait for them to talk first. And if they're bold enough to take the conversation over, then they probably have a good chance of making it in sales. And if they're not, then they may not be suited for us."

The sponsor of the Greensboro fair — a publication called Employment Guide — has been holding similar events for about 10 years. But organizers say the number of employers attending is sharply lower than it used to be.

And some of the firms accepting applications didn't really have any openings. Rather, they were trying to improve the quality of their work force — by searching for people who might do a better job than the employees they already have.

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