SAPL reached out to Workforce Solutions Alamo to host four local job fairs in library branches located in low to moderate income areas of the City. Local community job fairs create opportunities to pair neighborhood job seekers to neighborhood employers in a way that the big conference center job fairs cannot. The partnership with Workforce Solutions connected the library with a large community of employers in the San Antonio area. Employers that participated in the fairs were local, willing to hire on site, and offered multiple types of open positions.

Workforce Solutions managed the employer registration and contact portion of the job fairs. Workforce Solutions staff was also on site for the job fairs to make sure that each job seeker was registered for workintexas.com, an online career center. Library staff recruited speakers for the job fairs that spoke on topics such as soft skills for interviews, finding a job when you have a questionable background, and high quality résumé review. Registered attendees of the job fairs received a “job hunt kit” with job hunt and employment information and resources from the library, from partners, and from the community.

A total of 440 job seekers and 35 employers were in attendance. A target of eight training programs (two per site) and a total of 120 attendees was set in the hopes that complementary training in job search strategy, soft skills, and employment resources would further assist job seekers. Eleven programs were conducted, with a total of 180 people benefiting from the training. Finally, staff anticipated that 5 percent of attendees would find either part-time or full-time work. In reality, a total of 8.9 percent of attendees gained employment.