Fall 2026 Tampa Job Fairs & Hiring Events: Your Complete Guide

Published: September 3, 2026 | By LocalJobPage Team

TAMPA, FL — The fall hiring window in Tampa Bay opens in the middle of September and it is front-loaded this year. A community health system is interviewing at the CareerSource center on North Florida Avenue. A staffing firm is filling manufacturing and skilled trades roles the same morning across the bay. The Tampa Bay Times brings 50-plus employers to the St. Petersburg Coliseum, and USF opens its biggest all-majors fair of the semester in early October.

Six confirmed events between September 14 and October 8, all free for job seekers. Here they are in order.

In a hurry? Skip straight to the job links and begin searching now →

📅 Table of Contents

September 14 — Tampa Bay Job & Career Fair
September 15 — Tampa Family Health Centers Hiring Event
September 15 — FrankCrum Staffing Hiring Event
September 29 — Talent Meets Opportunity at South University
October 7 — USF Job & Internship Fair
October 8 — Tampa Job Fair at Holiday Inn Westshore

Tampa Bay Job & Career Fair — Monday, September 14

10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. | St. Petersburg Coliseum, 535 4th Ave N, St. Petersburg

The biggest general-audience event of the season and the one to build your week around. Produced by the Tampa Bay Times, it puts more than 50 local employers in one room alongside universities and vocational and technical schools, recruiting for the entire Tampa Bay area rather than one county. Admission and parking are both free and there is no pre-registration requirement, so you can simply show up. The organizers ask for business attire and at least 20 printed resumes, which is a fair signal of how many tables you are expected to work. Yes, it is across the bay from Tampa. It is worth the drive over the Howard Frankland.

Tampa Family Health Centers Hiring Event — Tuesday, September 15

10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. | CareerSource Tampa Bay Tampa Center, 9215 N. Florida Ave.

A single-employer session with Tampa Family Health Centers, the community health organization that runs clinics across the county. They are recruiting for both clinical and nonclinical openings, which matters: this is not a nurses-only room. Front desk, patient registration, medical records, billing and support staff are all part of a federally qualified health center's payroll. If you have healthcare experience but no license, this is the most useful three hours on the September calendar. Hosted at CareerSource's Tampa Center in the Sulphur Springs corridor, just south of Busch Boulevard.

FrankCrum Staffing Hiring Event — Tuesday, September 15

10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. | CareerSource Tampa Bay Gulf to Bay Center, 2312 Gulf to Bay Blvd., Clearwater

Same morning, same hours, opposite side of the bay. FrankCrum is a family-owned Clearwater staffing and recruiting company, and this session covers manufacturing, production, skilled trades and operations roles. Staffing-firm events work differently from a single employer's: you are being matched against a book of client openings rather than interviewing for one job, so come ready to talk about shift availability, equipment you have run and any certifications you hold. Note the conflict with the Tampa Family Health Centers event above. You cannot do both, so pick by industry.

Talent Meets Opportunity Hiring Event — Tuesday, September 29

9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. | South University Tampa Campus, 4401 N. Himes Ave.

A multi-employer fair run by CareerSource Tampa Bay in partnership with South University for Workforce Development Month. Four hours, a general audience, and a location just off Hillsborough Avenue near Drew Park that is far easier to reach from West Tampa and Town 'N' Country than the Coliseum date. The employer list had not been published as of this writing, so treat it as a broad-industry room rather than a targeted one, and check CareerSource's event page in the week before for the lineup.

USF Job & Internship Fair — Wednesday, October 7

11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. | USF Tampa campus, 4103 USF Cedar Circle

The broadest fair USF runs in the fall, open to all majors and all industries, covering full-time roles, internships and co-ops. Four hours is a long window by campus-fair standards, which usually means a large employer floor.

Read this before you drive out to Fowler: this one is for USF students and alumni. Check-in and employer registration run through Handshake, and you will need a USF account to get in. If you are not affiliated with the university, the October 8 event the following day is the one for you. USF also runs narrower fairs in this stretch, including an Engineering, AI & Tech fair on September 29 and a Civil Engineering fair on September 30, both also Handshake-gated.

Tampa Job Fair — Thursday, October 8

11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. | Holiday Inn Tampa Westshore Airport, 700 N. Westshore Blvd.

Best Hire Career Fairs runs a recurring Tampa event at the same Westshore hotel every time, which makes it easy to plan around. Expect a mix of healthcare and medical offices, finance and insurance, call centers and customer service, hospitality, retail, logistics and administrative employers, with roles running from entry level to management. Past exhibitors have included the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Spectrum and the State of Florida. Admission is free, but advance registration online is strongly recommended and space is limited. Walk-ins are allowed only if room remains.

🔎 How to Pick the Right Ones

Six events in four weeks is more than anyone needs. Sort yourself fast:

You want the most employers in one room: September 14 at the Coliseum. Nothing else this fall comes close on volume.
Healthcare, clinical or administrative: September 15 at the Tampa Center. Front-office and billing candidates should treat this as a priority, not a backup.
Manufacturing, production, trades, warehouse: September 15 in Clearwater. That is the only event on this list built around hands-on work.
You live on the west or north side of Tampa: September 29 at South University. Short drive, broad employer mix, four-hour window.
USF students and alumni: October 7. Add the September 29 and 30 engineering fairs if that is your field.
Everyone else, and anyone who missed September: October 8 at Westshore. Register early.

What to Bring to Any of Them

Printed resumes, more than you think you need. The Coliseum fair specifically asks for 20.
Photo ID, and Handshake access on your phone for the USF fair
License and certification numbers if you work in a credentialed field
Employment dates, addresses and references, since some employers have you apply on the spot
A short self-introduction you have actually said out loud
Your real availability, stated plainly. Shift flexibility closes more of these conversations than anything on your resume.
A notebook for names, so you can follow up inside 48 hours

💵 Your Pay Floor Changes on September 30

Worth knowing before you negotiate anything this fall: Florida's minimum wage rises from $14.00 to $15.00 an hour on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, and the tipped cash wage goes from $10.98 to $11.98. That is the last scheduled step of the increase Florida voters approved in 2020. After this one, the rate adjusts for inflation rather than by a fixed dollar amount.

Two practical consequences. First, Florida preempts local minimum wage ordinances, so there is no separate Tampa, Hillsborough or Pinellas rate to look up. The address where you do the work does not change the floor anywhere in this state, which is not true in California or Illinois. Second, "$15 an hour" stops being a selling point on September 30 and becomes the legal minimum. If you are looking at an offer or a posting advertising $15 for work starting in October, you are being offered the floor. Ask what sits above it.

What It Means for Job Seekers

Fall is Tampa Bay's heaviest hiring stretch. Hotels and attractions build crews ahead of the winter visitor season, distribution centers along the I-4 and I-75 corridors staff up for peak, health systems backfill after summer turnover, and anything opening before the holidays finishes its team now. The next six weeks are when those decisions actually get made.

Start here:

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Tampa job fairs free?

Every event on this list is free for job seekers. The Coliseum fair on September 14 also has free parking and no pre-registration. The October 8 Westshore event is free but asks you to register online in advance, and space is limited.

Which fall job fair has the most employers?

The Tampa Bay Job & Career Fair on September 14, with more than 50 employers plus colleges and technical schools. The USF Job & Internship Fair on October 7 is the largest campus event, but it is restricted to USF students and alumni.

Do I have to be a student to attend?

Only for the October 7 USF fair, which requires a USF Handshake account. Everything else on this list is open to the public, including the September 29 event held on the South University campus.

Are all of these actually in Tampa?

Four of the six are. The September 14 fair is at the St. Petersburg Coliseum in Pinellas County, and the September 15 FrankCrum session is in Clearwater. Both draw from the whole region, and CareerSource Tampa Bay serves Hillsborough and Pinellas together.

What should I wear?

Business or business casual everywhere on this list. The Coliseum fair asks for business attire specifically, and the Westshore event recommends dressing as you would for an interview.

Will more events be added?

Yes. CareerSource Tampa Bay posts hiring events roughly four to six weeks out, so its October and November calendar was still largely empty when this guide was written, and employers announce walk-in events with a week or two of notice. We update this guide as new dates are confirmed.

Don't Rely on Showing Up

A job fair is one channel, not a search. Create a free LocalJobPage account and set alerts so new Tampa openings reach you between events. Then work through the Career Center for role-by-role guides, and keep an eye on everything currently posted in Tampa.

Employers: a table at a fair reaches the people who happened to show up that day. Post your openings on LocalJobPage and reach Tampa job seekers every day of the season.

Bookmark this one. Six rooms between now and the second week of October, and the jobs go to the people who walked in with resumes in hand.