The Westside Job Fair held Sept. 6 at the Great American Diner and Bar in the West Seattle Junction saw more than 110 job seekers show up to apply for a variety of jobs with West Seattle employers from restaurants to drugs stores to the YMCA. 

The idea of Lora Swift of the West Seattle Junction Merchants, the Job Fair was meant to concentrate the effort by local employers to find qualified people, something that has become a perennial problem. It came from talking to our merchants about their collective open job positions and I decided to bring the community together in one place. I think it's power in numbers. They were able to harness the power of the Junction, WorkSource and their neighbors as well. Everybody contributed to the outreach." 

One key difference for job seekers is the ability to cut through the resume/application process people must deal with responding to online job listings. This way, they could speak directly to a potential employer and shorten the process of finding a good match between employer and employee.

The effort was a collaboration between the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the West Seattle Junction Merchants and WorkSource.

One employer Elliott Bay Brewpub had 25 people apply and "I'd like to hire at least 10 of them," said Victoria Gronley, Human Resources Manager for the company, "but I only have a couple of positions at each location."

Swift said the quality of the applicants was good, "and the employers I've talked to said they were walking away with multiple applications and multiple second interviews. This is more cohesive and the applicants have more to choose from."

The list of potential employers grew as the date of the job fair approached, according to Swift who said she had to turn away from four to six potential employers per day since there was no space left. Another job fair is being planned for May.