Retailers Energized by Crowd of Job Seekers

“Excited” was the word of the morning at the Merrimack Premium Outlets job fair at Nashua Community College on Friday morning.

Store managers and Premium Outlet managers alike were watching the thrumming crowd with smiles on their faces, greeting people as they walked by, and finding every nook and corner possible to conduct quick interviews with job seekers.

Out in the student center, employers conducted group and one on one interviews with job applicants all morning, but inside was where the veritable buzz could be heard.

Mark Cechini, director of stores for Bloomingdales' outlets division said the morning was very busy, people were waiting at the door at 8 a.m. ready to get a jump on the competition. Cechini said Bloomingdales, one of the anchor stores at the mall, is looking for around 45 employees from the store manager down to their merchandising associates known around Bloomingdales as team professionals.

Cechini said they were taking applications and conducting interviews and even making job offers if they felt they were ready to go with someone.

“We decided we had to be very competitive here today,” Cechini said.

Indeed, with dozens of retailers looking to hire and thousands of people looking for the same jobs, finding the right person and keeping them before someone else snagged them was vital.

Employees who are hired at Bloomingdales will start work on May 25, Cechini said, giving them about three weeks to train and help set up the 25,000-square-foot store.

General Manager for the Merrimack Premium Outlets Elaine Devine was all smiles as she strolled through the job fair chatting with employers. Devine, originally from Connecticut but looking for permanent housing in or around Merrimack, said she's excited to be part of the community.

"Everyone here has been so receptive, the town has been so welcoming," Devine said. "Everyone I've run into has been so ecited to kno the outlets are becoming a reality."

With the opening right around the corner, she said the events to celebrate it are being solidified and any details about that as well as any other stores added to the Premium Outlets website daily.

She said she couldn't even guess how many people they might have stop in throughout the day, but if the morning was any indicator, it would be immense.

"The response here has been so overwhelming and absolutely gratifying," she said, giving credit to Nashua Community College and the NH Works staff for helping to organize a fluid and smooth job fair experience.

By 8:30, after people made their initial rounds, Aquila said they had a small pile of applications. By 11 a.m. a stack of 30 to 40 applications sat on the table, waiting to be winnowed to the five or six jobs the high end luggage retailer is hiring.

Guy Aquila, district manager for Samsonite said he was enjoying the morning there meeting a full-range of people from the younger crowd that kicked of the day more of a range as the morning progressed.

“We're not a monster store,” Aquila said, referring to its relatively small 1,800 square-foot footprint. “But we have a very good quality, high-end item.”

Aquila said their store is on the smaller side for the shopping center, only 1,800 square feet, but the company cherishes its association with the Premium Outlets.

Aquila said high end outlet centers like this are very well known in the international market and tourists make trips specifically to centers like this to do their shopping while on vacation.

It's not uncommon, he said, for shoppers to come in, check out the luggage, leave and then return to purchase a suitcase to fill with their merchandise for the return trip home.

Aquila expects it to be no different for this center. In addition to the local residents who will shop there, it will be a large tourist draw, too, he said.

“We expect this center to do very, very well,” he said, adding that “tax-free New Hampshire” will be an even further draw.

And if the interest in working there is any indication, Aquila said the morning's rolling waves of people gave him great hope.

"I haven't gone a half hour or 45 minutes without having someon here talking about a job or filling out an application."

The Merrimack Premium Outlets job fair continues until 6 p.m. tonight. Event organizers are expecting another decent wave of job seekers this afternoon as the work and school day winds down, so head down early if you've nothing going on and beat the rush.

A total of about 800 jobs are available to be filled by the time the outlets open in just over two months.