By Sheri Mascorro & R.F. Hosseini

If you hold it, they will most definitely come.

In this case, the “it” was a one-of-a-kind career fair put on by Goodwill of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin Counties at our SOMA One-Stop Career Link Center on Friday, May 11. And the “they” were hundreds of attendees, Goodwill staffers and employers descending on the 1500 Mission St. career center building for a full afternoon of job hunting, career-focused workshops and employer presentations.

In all, 369 registered attendees (and possibly a few unregistered ones as well) were given the opportunity to interact with 14 employers from the health care, transportation and IT industries, among several others, as they sought to fill future and current openings and hosted a handful of presentations spotlighting their individual companies.

Comcast, UPS, Lowe’s, Staples and Jamba Juice were among the top companies represented at Friday’s smashingly successful fair.

“Employer Spotlight” presentations were given by Allied Barton, Swift Transportation and Solutions SF.

In addition, we organized two career-focused workshops that were each held twice and drew more than a hundred engaged participants. The workshop topics included:

• 7 Tips That Can Help You Compete for Jobs, presented by Karene Lee Conlin, author of Job Survival: 12 Ways to Succeed When There Are No Jobs

• Networking Strategies, presented by Rebecca Martin of dear jane Inc., a comprehensive career advisement company

The event was incredibly busy for our hard-working Goodwill staff, as well. Goodwill employees Lonnie Tuck and Hazel Williams held back-to-back One-Stop orientations throughout the afternoon, issuing 88 One-Stop cards during that time. To put this in perspective, the center averages about 135 One-Stop cards a month.

Meanwhile, all 20 of the computers inside the One-Stop center were in use throughout the event by attendees completing online job applications. Our staff was on hand to help with that process, and we had stations set up for attendees to complete paper applications as well. It got so busy we opened up an additional room to accommodate everyone.

“The career fair exposed eager minds to a plethora of resources and fresh ideas, and helped people to brush up on their interview skills,” said Goodwill resource specialist Tahmal Fleming. “The organization of the event and the way the workshops were running simultaneously with the career fair were wonderful.”

But just because this career fair is over doesn’t mean our mission is done. We will be calculating how many attendees successfully landed employment as a result of the fair. And, as always, we will be continuing to offer an array of jobs assistance programs and other innovative services to the 46,000 clients we help a year. You can learn more about these services on our website’s Jobs page.

Best of luck, and see you at our next fair!

Sheri Mascorro is Goodwill’s manager of employer engagement and people services.