Showcase Atlanta Workforce Expo helps businesses staff up before World Cup

The crowd formed before the doors had even opened.

Then at 10 a.m. Thursday morning, scores of job seekers entered a ballroom at the Georgia World Congress Center, eager to find their next role as the Showcase Atlanta Workforce Expo officially started.

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More than 100 employers, ranging from MARTA to State Farm Arena to the new Hotel Phoenix downtown, met with candidates at booths with signs proclaiming “We are hiring.”

One booth with a line snaking down the ballroom offered free headshots. Others offered advice, interviews, and in some cases, jobs, to the more than 1,800 people who registered for the expo Thursday.

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

In the first hour and a half, the GWCC extended at least five job offers, Harriet Thomas, director of talent development and communication for the center, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Today was really helping people to kind of walk away not just with a hope, but with an offer in hand,” Thomas said.

Mayor Andre Dickens shares how he’s making sure the World Cup in 2026 feels like it happens with Atlanta, not to it. Credits: AJC Getty Images|Arvin Temkar, Jonathan Newton, Miguel Martinez, Abbey Cutrer, Hyosub Shin/AJC|Jeffrey Greenberg/Getty Images|Gavin Godfrey/AJC

The GWCC is hiring for more than 50 part-time positions and about 15 full-time roles in a variety of departments, from 911 operators to facilities management. The organization is looking to staff up before hosting the FIFA Fan Festival at Centennial Olympic Park this summer. But the World Cup was not Thomas’ only focus.

The GWCC is one of the busiest convention centers in the nation.

“It was FIFA and beyond,” she said. “Because our building will still be here after World Cup, right? And that’s important to us. So we want to make sure that the people in our community, around our community, are able to come to work even past World Cup.”

Thomas said the GWCC is trying to have people in place by the end of March.

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

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In fall 2024, the mayor’s office launched Showcase Atlanta to increase involvement of local businesses and citizens in the large events that come to the city, so they “happen with Atlanta and not to Atlanta,” Mayor Andre Dickens said at Thursday’s expo.

The first of these big events is the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which is about 100 days away. Dickens said the city is expecting anywhere from $500 million to almost $1 billion in economic impact from the event.

But the expo is also happening at a time of increased layoffs across the country and heightened economic uncertainty.

“We know that this Workforce Expo couldn’t have come at a better time,” Dickens told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Of course, we have this major event that’s about to happen in 100 days, and so that will produce some jobs. … But then, this is also about going forward. What happens after the games? We want people to have great career opportunities.”

Some of the job seekers at the expo said they were looking for a new full-time role. Others wanted a part-time job to increase their income. Still others were hoping to evolve their career through the connections they made with employers.

For Edwin Hammond, the expo was a chance for him to meet people in person that he had been trying to network with on LinkedIn. The 25-year-old bartender has been looking for the past year to move into a new role in hospitality.

“I really just wanted to reach out more, shake their hand,” Hammond said about his goals for the expo. And it might pay off. He said Hotel Phoenix had invited him to a hiring event at the hotel Monday.

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

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Hammond wasn’t the only person who’s been applying for awhile. Kristin Johnson, 54, has been looking since October, submitting application after application and not getting anywhere.

But at the expo, she said she found out what might be going wrong. One of the employers looked at her resume and explained the way Johnson had been listing her various roles at her previous company was probably undermining her application.

“She even wrote it down on the back of my resume, this is how the layout should be,” Johnson said. “I was really thankful, because no one has explained it to me that way.”

The two-day expo will last through Friday afternoon. Overall, 2,500 people have registered for both days, Lamar Stewart, interim executive director for Showcase Atlanta, said. This is the first workforce event the organization has held, Stewart said.

“We have people who answered the call, said we want to help, said we want to make sure that we are providing opportunities,” Stewart said. “They want to engage locally. They want connections.”

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