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Not Your Typical Job Fair: Global 1000 Event Provides Path For Participants To Be Hired On The Spot

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Technology is a focus of the Global 1000 hiring event that began Thursday and culminates with a major hiring fair on Saturday in Miami Gardens.

Philip Bacon, president of the South Florida nonprofit Urban Philanthropies, says this weekend’s hiring fair isn’t just about jobs.

“A job is a vehicle toward a career,” he says.

That’s the philosophy of the Global 1000 hiring event that kicked off on Thursday.

 

Over three days a series of free panels focused on business development and technology prepares applicants for the main hiring fair on Saturday. Unlike a job fair, a hiring fair aims to accept applicants on the spot or streamline follow-up interviews.

Bacon says more than 50 companies and government agencies are offering a range of jobs from entry-level to mid-career to management. Participating employers range from national corporations, such as Starbucks and Amazon, to local entities, including Related Urban Development Group and EcoTech Visions, a start-up incubator.

Technology is a particular focus of the Global 1000 event, which coincides with BlackTech Week.

“Technology offers a route to what we call lean entrepreneurship and lean economic development,” Bacon says about educational opportunities that often bypass traditional two and four-year higher education schema.

Yet the hiring fair has a broader social mission. Bacon explains that job-readiness done right can have a ripple effect for under-served communities, such as Overtown, Little Havana and Liberty City. (The unemployment rate in Miami-Dade County was 4.5 percent as of December 2017, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

“We want to put a spotlight on hiring people from these communities,” he says.

Bacon stressed that everyone should have a chance of applying. Applicants can attend panels to network, hear from entrepreneurs and become acquainted with trends in technology. 

Plus the state attorney’s office will be on site to assist those with criminal backgrounds.

In short, Bacon recommends applicants stick to two tenets.

“Be positive,” he says, “and relax.”

The Global 1000 hiring event runs Thursday to Saturday, when the main hiring fair takes place at Topgolf in Miami Gardens, 17321 NW Seventh Ave.

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