All of the job fairs being offered through Eastbayworks.org feature self employment or commission only participants, if job fair providers are serious, they need to know what the definition of a job is and REQUIRE the potential employers meet minimum requirements for their JOB offerings, ie: State Salary and Benefits if any. You would think some savvy reporter at the Contra Costa Times would look into this because the reason legions of the unemployed attend job fairs is to find a job.

The definition of a job or employment is to receive a salary, not a 'business opportunity' which is what anything involving commission only or 3 month salary plus commission or draw against commission really is and what I have been seeing since attending various job fairs in Contra Costa County from 2008 to the present. There needs to be two types of 'fairs' one type for jobs, the other type for 'business opportunities' so that individuals are not stuck wasting their time with MLM offerings, Straight commission companies or those where there is a requirement of the 'employee' to pay out of their pocket for some portion of the marketing effort, including driving to client appointments. Also, job fair providers need to make sure that at least half of their employers are located within a 20 minute drive radius if the positions being offered are $13 per hour or less since for Contra Costa County this is the salary point where the employee is eligible for poverty assistance programs, ie: food, shelter, clothing etc.

I recently attended a job fair at Martinez Adult Education  http://www.businesstrainingcenter.org/ and found a number of 'business opportunity' participants, meaning there is no salary job available through their companies, a fraudulent participation if there ever was one. Asking all of them what salaried positions are available in their offices and what they were revealed that these were solo operators recruiting for straight commission consultants who would need to have the money in the bank to generate the necessary marketing strategies to create the appointments to create an 'opportunity' to 'make a sale.'  These 'business opportunities' while some of them are 'free to join' require the costs to market their products and services be assumed by the consultant or representative who joins and therein lies the contradiction of the recruiter's statement that it is 'free to join.' For those from a financial background we are well aware that it requires at least 4 hours per day making contacts before sales are made, multiple lengthy drives using your vehicle and gas (costs incurred of course by the representative, not the company) and commissions do not materialize for several months for certain products. Consumer items such as those you might find in department stores being sold through independent consultants require the participant to generate leads similarly and no earnings materialize until the sale is made and, at worst, you might have several shows with very little sales and at best you might make $200 per product show demonstration all dependent on how much product participants decide to buy and in today's economy the average consumer does not have $200+ to splurge on products, maybe $25 to $50.

Contra Costa Times and fellow readers, let's get job fair offerors to change their tune and offer real 'jobs!'

I'll get off my soap box now and thanks for reading!