Harrah's Casino hosted a job fair Tuesday where many of the participants weren't even seeking new employees. What they did have to offer was getting a second look from many job seekers.
Go to a job fair these days and you probably won't find find booths for the big companies. Instead what you will find are lots of booths for career schools like DeVry University, anxious to recruit older students who can't find a job
Heritage College, Grantham University, Bellevue University, DeVry University and Pinnacle Career Institute are all doing well in this bad economy.
"I started with the company about three years ago and there was only about 50 of us and now, about 200," Maggie Franz with the Pinnacle Career Institute said.
Franz has job openings, but the slots she's really trying to fill are for student enrollment. Job seekers like Tiffany Carter know good jobs are increasingly hard to find.
"I'm a single parent and everything, I'm just trying to get a job, make ends meet," Carter said.
She admits nursing school sounds attractive.
"Yes, it would pay off in the long run, they're really looking for nurses all over," Carter said.
"Most of them need retraining in something because if they did something in manufacturing or something like that for so many years, those jobs are going away," Franz said.
And what better place to find students than a job fair where discouraged job seekers might see a light bulb.
"We focus on technology, we do it in a very short time frame, so we do it in a 4-6 month period," Russ Mondry with Centriq Training, which provides IT skills, said. "What we're going after is somebody who's looking to change careers."
Or somebody like Francisco Mack, who wasn't able to finish an IT program in his younger days.
"At the moment there's a lot of education out there that I'm willing to get so that I can actually go forth in my career of computer engineering and so forth," Mack said.
The biggest roadblock to going back to school is money, courses can often be $10,000 to $20,000. Of course most of these schools offer financial assistance and even night courses to make them a more attractive option.
Go to a job fair these days and you probably won't find find booths for the big companies. Instead what you will find are lots of booths for career schools like DeVry University, anxious to recruit older students who can't find a job
Heritage College, Grantham University, Bellevue University, DeVry University and Pinnacle Career Institute are all doing well in this bad economy.
"I started with the company about three years ago and there was only about 50 of us and now, about 200," Maggie Franz with the Pinnacle Career Institute said.
Franz has job openings, but the slots she's really trying to fill are for student enrollment. Job seekers like Tiffany Carter know good jobs are increasingly hard to find.
"I'm a single parent and everything, I'm just trying to get a job, make ends meet," Carter said.
She admits nursing school sounds attractive.
"Yes, it would pay off in the long run, they're really looking for nurses all over," Carter said.
"Most of them need retraining in something because if they did something in manufacturing or something like that for so many years, those jobs are going away," Franz said.
And what better place to find students than a job fair where discouraged job seekers might see a light bulb.
"We focus on technology, we do it in a very short time frame, so we do it in a 4-6 month period," Russ Mondry with Centriq Training, which provides IT skills, said. "What we're going after is somebody who's looking to change careers."
Or somebody like Francisco Mack, who wasn't able to finish an IT program in his younger days.
"At the moment there's a lot of education out there that I'm willing to get so that I can actually go forth in my career of computer engineering and so forth," Mack said.
The biggest roadblock to going back to school is money, courses can often be $10,000 to $20,000. Of course most of these schools offer financial assistance and even night courses to make them a more attractive option.
