Nearly 3,000 people walked through the BB&T Center in Sunrise on Thursday looking for new jobs.
Job News USA, a recruiting and marketing agency, hosted a local job fair that brought 60 employers together under one roof. General Manager Tiffany Price said hiring companies ranged from the Florida Panthers to the city of Sunrise.
“I mean, it’s really all over - Jiffy Lube’s looking for ASE-certified mechanics; we have the Navy here as well...It’s really from every level of a job,” Price said.
Twenty-one-year-old Cayla-Silk Laud is an aspiring life coach. To be able to do that someday, she’s looking at positions now that can help her sharpen her people and communication skills.
Currently unemployed, she said she’s hoping to get a call back from the companies she spoke with at the job fair.
“I applied pretty much everywhere in there, and I would love to start working again,” Laud said. “I feel like a bum, but I know I’m not a bum. Right now, I’m just in a tough spot, but I will get out of that. I will get a job.”
Bashawn Mullins, 27, is equally optimistic about finding a job.
“I actually just recently just lost my job, so I’m trying to actually find something here -- not really in the same field, but something totally different from what I was doing,” he said.
Mullins was a bank teller before he lost his job. Now he wants a change in his life.
“I was considering something in graphics,” Mullins said. “So I did find a couple things in there that were pretty cool and interesting, so I think I might look into them a little bit more.”
Employers like Custom Services, a sales representative and customer service company, were on the hunt for people to fill both experienced and entry-level positions.
Logan Mohring, the company’s director of sales, said he’s looking to hire for openings at all three of its Fort Lauderdale locations.
“All of these positions are going to require more positions up the ladder,” Mohring said. “For us, this has been a huge success.”
Mohring said Custom Service’s goal is to grow the company by 100 employees over the next year. At just an hour and a half into the job fair, he’d already received more than 100 applications, and his colleagues were conducting one-on-one interviews.
Job News USA puts on job fairs at the BB&T Center quarterly. But the company has seen more applicants attending as more employers are added.
The next job fair will be at the Marriot West Palm Beach on Dec. 7.