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COVER STORY JOB FAIR: During a Nov. 11 job fair, Hugo Capistran interviews a candidate for a position at the new Public House at the Venetian. The three-day event drew hundreds of applicants.. By Dave Berns 140 seats. But when the recession forced the partners to close the eatery in February, the 40-year-old divorced father of a young child spent seven months unemployed. The hole in his job history would undoubtedly have I been a black mark to employers during the boom years in Las Vegas — a sign of personal frailty, of flightiness, of a mysterious inability to hold a job when employment opportunities were abundant. But the fact Harwell has rejoined the workforce as manager of The Pub at Monte Carlo speaks to a new attitude among some companies about imperfections in job seekers' resumes. As he applied for more than 200 openings throughout the Southwest and Southern California, Harwell said he found interviewers to be empathetic about his situation. "The focus was on being able to explain the prior two years of my life since the departure from New York- New York, developing some understanding of why I did what I did," he said. "I chose to follow the dream. It didn't work out this time. And I explained why I'm better for it having gone through what I went through | 21 NOVEMBER 2011 | n better economic times, a resume like Cory Harwell's might have been the kiss of death to a job applicant in Las Vegas. In 2008, Harwell left his position as director of food and beverage at New York-New York to join several partners in opening their own establishment — Caña , a relatively small, tapas-themed restaurant with the past two years." Entering the fourth year of the economic collapse, human resources directors and small-business operators have been forced to adjust their personnel expectations. Workplace dynamics that raised eyebrows in 2006 — gaps in a resume, low credit scores, multiple job changes within a short period of time — have become the new reality for many Southern Nevadans who are struggling to survive the collapse of the housing market, the disappearance of personal credit and the lack of jobs. Many of today's potential employees are simply struggling to pay the bills rather than climb the organizational ladder, and the pool of potential hires has expanded, leaving savvy human resources directors combing through thousands of appealing and not-so appealing applications. "Now foreclosures are so common, foreclosure, itself, wouldn't eliminate you from consideration for a job," says Michelle DiTondo, senior vice president of human resources for MGM Resorts International. Same goes for other personal setbacks. One top Las Vegas casino executive believes that the worst U.S. economy in 70 years has shredded tens of thousands of resumes throughout Southern Nevada, leaving qualified applicants with unsteady work histories and financial troubles that would have raised eyebrows at the height of the economic boom. "Now," he says, "we must be more understanding, more forgiving." However, that sentiment isn't shared by all employers. Another Las Vegas casino executive is emphatic: Anyone worth hiring locally has a job. If not, the best of the lot have left town to search for work. Those who remain lack the skills or drive to work in this market, he says, noting that a significant percentage of the local candidates he sees have low credit scores and fail employer drug tests. "I won't hire from that pool," he says matter of factly. "I'd rather hire someone from out of town." That being the case, it's difficult to determine whether Harwell's experience of overcoming an employment gap is common. What is clear, however, is that hiring has changed drastically in the last five years, and some employers' outlook has changed with it. THEN AND NOW W hen Strip employers posted openings before the recession, it could take a month for a single person to apply. Delivery drivers had become successful mortgage brokers. Beauticians were pulling down hundreds of thousands of dollars as Realtors. Construction workers bought second cars and boats with their six-figure incomes. Why bother to work a casino industry job that paid $35,000 a year? The challenge of filling jobs was exponentially harder for the operators of mom-and-pop businesses, who found it virtually impossible to hire qualified cooks, food servers and cashiers who routinely chose to fill better-paying jobs that offered benefits. That's no longer the case at most levels of the job market. "We went from having no one applying for weeks to 17