They descended on Kent from all over the region with one goal in mind: Finding a job.<\/p>\n
Thousands of job-seekers began lining up early May 14 to be the first inside the ShoWare Center to pass out resumes and talk to the more than 70 employers at the KOMO 4 Problem Solvers Job Fair.<\/p>\n
Scott Slagle of Orting was in line at 10 a.m. for the 1 p.m. opening. An IT director and vice president for more than 20 years, Slagle said he has been out of work since August.<\/p>\n
At ShoWare, he handed out six resumes and had one interview.<\/p>\n
“It’s a lot better than sitting at home on the computer,” he said. “After this many months … I’m just getting out and pounding the pavement.<\/p>\n
“This is the best job fair I’ve been to since I’ve been unemployed,” he said.<\/p>\n
According to Beth Sylves, director of marketing for the ShoWare Center, the line began to form at 8 a.m.<\/p>\n
“Initially we had people lined up around one side of the building and down the other,” said Beth.<\/p>\n
Though the center planned for up to 5,000 job-seekers, Sylves said judging by the way more people kept showing up to stand in line even after the fair began, that number might be low.<\/p>\n
“I imagine we might exceed that today,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The turnout is phenomenal,” agreed Bob Throndsen, the managing editor at KOMO, who oversaw the job fair planning.<\/p>\n
Throndsen “conservatively” estimated that there were about 1,000 jobs available through the booths that filled the ShoWare Center’s floor and said employers were as anxious to be a part of the show as job-seekers were. State agencies alone have 300 openings, he said.<\/p>\n
“We actually had to turn employers away,” he said.<\/p>\n
Throndsen said the station wanted to do something after doing many stories on the sad state of the economy.<\/p>\n
“It really hits home when you realize these are your friends, your neighbors out looking for work,” he said.<\/p>\n
The job fair also featured a stage with speakers offering job search tips as well as a resume help center.<\/p>\n
Dawn Hasbrook of Auburn said she has been out of work for about a year and was at the job fair hoping to find something in customer service or photography.<\/p>\n
During her time at the arena, she spoke with several employers and was even able to score an interview with one of them.<\/p>\n
“So far, so good,” she said before heading back for another pass at the booths.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully everyone here gets lucky,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They descended on Kent from all over the region with one goal in mind: Finding a job. Thousands of job-seekers began lining up early May 14 to be the first inside the ShoWare Center to pass out resumes and talk to the more than 70 employers at the KOMO 4 Problem Solvers Job Fair. Scott […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":18404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18403"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}