Hundreds of job-seekers lined up in the pouring rain Monday morning during a T-Mobile job fair at the Callaway Conference Center of West Georgia Technical College.

“It’s almost overwhelming to see this many people come out in this kind of weather,” job-seeker Starlin Beasley said. “I was thinking that more people would have just stayed home because of the rain. It just goes to show how tough things are in the job market lately.”

T-Mobile began the fair at 10:30 a.m. and will hire up to 111 people for its national return center at 210 Wiley Road, said Luis Sample, manager of human resources for the company.

“We hope to make the first job offers as early as by the end of this week,” Sample said. “Our goal is to have our first group of new hires working by March 30. We’d like to go ahead and thank everyone for toughing it out and coming here and waiting in the rain. It says a lot about everyone’s character.”

Monday’s session, which ran from 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m., was part of a three-day process. Today’s schedule runs until 5 p.m., while Wednesday will go from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

T-Mobile then will narrow its list of applicants before inviting the most qualified ones for interviews Thursday and Friday. The new hires will fill the return center’s new second shift.

On Monday, applicants watched a short orientation video about their potential working environments and filled out “minimum re-quirement” questions. Those who passed that phase were invited back later that day to take a 30-minute computer test.

Jobs applied for included distribution supervisor, database developer, parts coordinator, production coordinator, distribution leader, utility clerk, technical operator, inventory specialist, inventory clerk, quality assurance inspector, forklift operator, kitting clerk, distribution specialist, receiving pro-cessor and maintenance technician.

Wages are expected to range from $9.23 to $14.81 an hour, depending on the position. Benefits packages can include child care subsidies, tuition assistance and more.

Though applicants had to endure rain Monday morning, there’s little chance for bad weather the rest of the week.

Some applicants such as Tyler Timbrook said Monday’s rain was no problem.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get this job,” Timbrook said. “There’s no way a little rain is going to stop me from being one of the first ones here. I just got laid off from Milliken a while back. Like many here, I need this.”

Also standing in the rain, job-seeker Gary Monroe said he was fired in August from his former employer in West Point after 30 years of service.

“Obviously, I just hope to get a new job out of this,” Monroe said, holding his resume. “I also worked about six months at Mando of America in Lanett, Ala., before I was recently laid off. It’s pretty rough out there as far as jobs go.”

With the current local unemployment rate at 12 percent, T-Mobile is proud to provide new jobs for the area, Sample said.

“Our company is very fortunate to have senior leadership that has come up with innovative ways to better service our customers in this tough economic time,” Sample said. “It all has come together to give us a fantastic opportunity to provide more em-ployment opportunities in this area when a lot of people really need them.”

Kenneth Thompson can be reached at kethompson@lagrangenews.com or at (706) 884-7311, Ext. 228.