HIGH SCHOOL JOB FAIR WORKS UP STUDENTS.

Byline: Chris Sieroty Staff Writer

GRANADA HILLS - With unemployment at a 30-year low and workers hard to find, high school students looking for part-time and summer jobs are finding unprecedented opportunities to earn spending money or to save for college.

At a job fair Wednesday at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, about 2,700 students, ages 15 to 18, talked about summer jobs and long-term career options with recruiters from Southwest Airlines, The Gas Company, Bank of America and dozens of other companies, large and small.

The fourth annual ``College and Career Fair'' was the largest ever for the North Valley campus, and one of the largest in the region. And although job fairs are a typical rite of spring for high schools, what wasn't typical was the employers on hand or the jobs being offered.

``It's an opportunity for these kids to be exposed to all different career opportunities,'' said Warren Farlow, coordinator of the fair and a career adviser at the high school.

Pat Lyson, a recruiter with Dallas-based Southwest, said she wants to meet high school students who might be interested in joining the company once they've graduated.

Amelia Soohoo, 18, a senior at Kennedy High School, said she planned to go to college next year, but listened to what Southwest had to offer because she was interested in the company.

Lyson said high school students like Soohoo can qualify to work as customer service agents and earn more than $9 an hour in their first year out of school.

``If a student isn't old enough to work for Southwest, hopefully they will take the brochure home, and maybe someone else will be interested in a job,'' Lyson said.

But being a customer service agent wasn't the right ticket for Jason Arms, 17, who has spent the past year working toward a degree from the Aviation Career Training for High School Students at Van Nuys Airport, while also attending Kennedy High.

``About a year after high school I will graduate from their program and go on to a high-paying career as an airline mechanic,'' Arms said. ``I found out about the program at last year's job fair, but I was interested in the program before that.''

Farlow said that since the demand is so great for airline mechanics, Arms can expect to earn between $35,000 and $50,000 in his first year.

Devaki Magee, 17, a senior at Kennedy, took time out to fill out an application with Bank of America, which wants to hire part-time tellers for the summer.

``I need a job really bad,'' said Magee, hoping a summer of hard work would earn enough money to help pay for college next year. The future biology major at San Diego State University or the University of California, Santa Cruz, said she had been invited to attend an open interview next week at the Northridge Fashion Center.

There were the traditional recruiters of teen-agers, as well.

Cmdr. Stephen L. Huss, an information officer with the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., said students who were in the top 5 percent of their class and wanted to serve their country ``would get an Ivy League education at the academy.''

Huss also stressed that unlike graduates from other universities, academy grads are guaranteed a job once they graduate.

The annual event featured more than 70 corporations and schools. Last year, about 40 employers participated in the youth job fair, said Farlow.

Among the corporations that participated were The Gas Company, the city and county of Los Angeles, and the Department of Water and Power. Some 25 colleges and universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Mission College, Pierce College and University of La nVerne, were at the fair hoping to recruit Kennedy students to their campuses in the fall.

Adrienne Carter-Thompson, admissions coordinator with the University of Southern California Department of Nursing, said the Kennedy High School career fair was very well put together.

``All the 11th-grade students were very well prepared. Very seldom do we come to a high school where the students are so well versed on what questions to ask,'' she said.

Carter-Thompson said she talked with about 400 students and expected to recruit about five students to consider nursing as a career by the end of the one-day fair.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Kennedy High School students Kori McSorley-Campos, left, and Melissa Medina watch a video on the travel industry in a bus from the Hogan Family Foundation Travel & Tourism Institute during a job fair held at the Granada Hills campus Wednesday morning.

(2 -- color) Students make their way through the Kennedy High School gym during Wednesday's job fair.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer