An estimated 900 people jammed the Onondaga County Convention Center Wednesday for a shot at the 200 jobs that will open up next year at a renovated Hotel Syracuse.

Tiffany Davis, of Syracuse, said she has been looking for an administrative job since she was laid off a month ago by a marketing firm where she worked for five years. She said she came to the job fair because she’s excited about the possibility of getting in on the ground floor of a newly reopened Hotel Syracuse.

She had to wait a while for her interview. She arrived at the convention center at 12:45 p.m. but, due to the large crowd, had to wait until after 3 p.m. to be interviewed. She didn’t mind the wait, though.

“As many people as turned out, nobody really got upset,” she said. “The interviewers were really nice.”

Edin Kinnison, of Syracuse, applied for a housekeeping position at the hotel. Her last job was cleaning a hair salon, but she has been out of work for a couple of months, she said.

Kinnison said she has applied for jobs at numerous retailers and fast-food restaurants, with no luck. But she said she is optimistic she will find a job at the Hotel Syracuse, even though she would have to wait until early next year for the job to start.

More than 1,200 people registered for the fair. Of those 1,200, about 450 showed up. But another 450 people who had not registered also showed up, and everyone was given an interview, said Kay Frizzell, office manager of Hotel Syracuse Restoration Co.

Ed Riley, who bought the hotel last year, is conducting a $70 million renovation of the historic building and plans to reopen it with 261 rooms in early 2016 as Marriott Downtown Syracuse. Opened in 1924, the historic hotel closed in 2004.

Riley is looking for food and beverage servers, cooks, bartenders, dishwashers, room attendants, maintenance workers, front desk clerks and other workers. Some of the jobs will start in January, some in February and others in March.

Paul McNeil, a 30-year veteran with the Marriott hotel chain, has been named general manager of the hotel. He said he was impressed by the quality of the applicants he saw at the fair.

“I think some of it is the popularity of the hotel,” he said. “A lot of people have connections to the hotel. It’s an icon.”

No one was hired on the spot. Organizers of the fair, which included the state Department of Labor and the State University of New York’s Syracuse Educational Opportunity Center, said the event was just the start of the hiring process. Some applicants will be called back for second interviews and some will be offered free training classes to improve basic work skills, they said.

Representatives from Crowne Plaza, Doubletree at Carrier Circle, the Residence Inn and Courtyard Syracuse Downtown at Armory Square, Holiday Inn Electronics Parkway, Holiday Inn Express at the Airport, Sheraton University and Turning Stone Resort Casino also attended the event.

Source: http://www.syracuse.com/business-news/index.ssf/2015/09/nearly_1000_turn_out_for_hotel_syracuse_job_fair.html