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turned out to be a bit more than the sponsors could chew... more than 1,500 applicants turned up before the doors opened...
the organizers expected a possible turnout of 5,000 people for the 1,000 job openings - they did NOT expect what they got...The event started at 9:30 a.m. and a short time later the 3,000-car parking lot at the Mall of New Hampshire had no more room.
more than 10,000 people showed up and by noon time no more people were admitted to the campus - the job fair was originally scheduled to be open until 3PM
all parking was to be done at the Mall of NH and shuttle buses would bring prospective job seekers to the site - however, the Mall of NH parking lot filled up and there was no room to park and the lines extended for miles down the highway as people tried to get into the Mall parking lots - chaos and frustration at it's finest
IMO a lot of the problems could have been avoided if the event was held at a place suitable and big enough for such a venue - the Verizon Arena comes to mind.
the majority of applicants were looking for jobs and didn't care for the resume writing seminars or the the 'dress for success' lessons - most were highly skilled labor that were looking for work - the 130 companies on hand stopped taking resumes by 11AM.
there was a traffic cop located outside the university and by noon time was telling passerbys that the event was shutting down - too bad if you parked down the road and just walked a mile.....
it's funny that they claim this is a state wide job fair, but it's not realistic...Coos county people are not going to be able to arrive by 9:30 and make the lines...but we're used to being ignored as NH residents.
WHEN they decide to hold another job fair, hopefully it will be done in multiple locations and handled with a little more planning - try getting NH Employment Security people involved - they have experience.
I agree-it was very poorly run. A place large enough-like the Verizon- would have been much better. I also think they should have canned the workshops and concentrated on just those seeking jobs. Also, next time, perhaps it should be longer hours, like 9-7, five hours is not enough.
it's a shame really - one man waited for the bus at the Mall for two hours. the job fair people had already stated on air (WMUR-TV @ 11AM) that no more people would be able to get in, yet the buses kept on loading people and transporting them to the school where they were then sent back to the mall without getting off the bus
yet, even when the mall shuttle buses stopped (around noon), WMUR-TV and Manchester's mayor was telling people to take regular city buses to the fair.
not a good day for the majority of people hoping to find a job...
There are now 15,000 fewer New Hampshire residents working than a year ago.
The northern tier of towns in Strafford County — New Durham, Middleton, Farmington and Milton — along with the abutting towns of Wakefield and Ossipee in southern Carroll County — comprise a particularly hard hit region.
The New Hampshire communities in Foster's Sunday Citizen readership areas posted December unemployment rates as follows:
IMO a lot of the problems could have been avoided if the event was held at a place suitable and big enough for such a venue - the Verizon Arena comes to mind.
the majority of applicants were looking for jobs and didn't care for the resume writing seminars or the the 'dress for success' lessons - most were highly skilled labor that were looking for work - the 130 companies on hand stopped taking resumes by 11AM.
there was a traffic cop located outside the university and by noon time was telling passerbys that the event was shutting down - too bad if you parked down the road and just walked a mile.....
it's funny that they claim this is a state wide job fair, but it's not realistic...Coos county people are not going to be able to arrive by 9:30 and make the lines...but we're used to being ignored as NH residents.
WHEN they decide to hold another job fair, hopefully it will be done in multiple locations and handled with a little more planning - try getting NH Employment Security people involved - they have experience.
I live in Grafton County and it would be silly to hold the job fair up here when most people live in the southern part of the state. Why should I complain ...nobody forced me to live up here
why not a job fair in Grafton County as one of the alternate locations? I'm not saying that it should be located entirely in the north....but to say it's for the entire state when the employers are mostly from Manchester is not accurate.
Chris Duchaine, 32, of Johnson, Vt., got shut out because of the gridlock situation in Manchester.
Duchaine and a friend drove to Manchester after dropping off resumes at a job fair in Massachusetts Thursday morning, but he got there after the shuttle buses stopped running. Duchaine joked that he met people in line in Massachusetts who already had been to the Manchester event.
Job Manager Jeff Bartlet said the turnout was unexpected but the good thing is that 100's of people might have gotten a job.
hundreds out of more than 10,000.....depressing. NH has more than 39K newly unemployed residents.
the complaints varied - poorly organized and highly promoted were the most common phrases - WMUR spent weeks in selfless self-promotion, while filling precious news time slots with redundant pitches for this job fair.
in addition to telemarketing jobs, there were a variety of temp agencies (MOST) but the real jobs were few and far between - unfortunately the temp agencies didn't have any jobs available either, but a padded data base is what they are all about - the military was there too (be all you can be in the army of ONE).....not really helpful to the 30-50 crowd that made up the lines.
Aflec (insurance company) had 4 openings
one man complained that he didn't realize Burger King and Wal-Mart were the only ones that were full time positions and not just seasonal work....
apparently the National Guard was called to help with traffic - cars were ticketed for parking on So. Willow St. at $100/pop and the city was gridlocked.
better luck next time WMUR - less promotion, better venue and real jobs would create a better job fair.
i'm not going to fault wmur or anybody else that organized this. Anyone that is going to do "anything" to try to help people out in this economy I tip my hat to. Yes it would've been good to have multiple locations, such as one in nashua , one in manchester ,and one in laconia or at least sent a representative to the mall to meet with people to at least gather their resumes to set up later interviews. I think it would have been helpful to have the interview training and resume writing 2 weeks earlier, maybe would have given a better idea of potential numbers. And believe me I use to be an interviewer at job fairs and I would interview about 50 people in a day and trust me their is a large percentage that did not know how to make a resume or interview. As they said on wmur this was their first , hopefully they will learn from it and do it again
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more than 1,500 applicants turned up before the doors opened...
