Kern County Healthcare Job Fair Comes to the Bakersfield Marriott September 15

Published: September 12, 2026 | By LocalJobPage Team

BAKERSFIELD, CA — Kern County's workforce agency is putting local hospitals, clinics and care providers under one roof on Truxtun Avenue Tuesday morning, in a year when California law pushed the legal floor for health care work to $25 an hour at the biggest systems. If you have been firing applications at Adventist Health and Kern Medical from your phone and never getting a callback, this is the version where a human reads your resume in front of you.

The Employers' Training Resource Healthcare Job Fair runs Tuesday, September 15, from 9:00 AM to noon at the Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center. All experience levels are welcome, which in Kern County health care means a lot more than nurses.

Need work now? Skip straight to the Bakersfield health care job links and start searching →

📍 At a Glance

Event	Healthcare Job Fair
Date	Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Time	9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Location	Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center, 801 Truxtun Avenue, Bakersfield, CA 93301
Format	In person
Host	Employers' Training Resource, Kern County
Eligibility	All experience levels welcome
Contact	Kari McLeod, (661) 747-7937, mcleodk@kerncounty.com

🏆 Who's Behind It

Employers' Training Resource is Kern County's own workforce department, and it runs the America's Job Center of Kern network. That matters for one practical reason: ETR is not an out-of-town promoter renting a ballroom. It is the agency that already places Kern County residents into jobs from Delano down to Tehachapi, and the employers it invites are the ones actually filling seats.

ETR posts its fairs and single-employer recruitments on its Job Fairs and Recruitments page, and the healthcare fair is the one live public event on it this weekend. A dealer hiring event at Hard Rock Casino Tejon in Mettler ran Thursday, September 10, and has closed.

⚠️ Read This Before You Drive Downtown

Being straight about what is not published yet. ETR has not released an employer roster, so nobody can tell you in advance whether your specific target is in the room. It also has not posted an admission price or an online registration link. Those are blanks, not red flags, and the fix is a phone call: Kari McLeod at (661) 747-7937. Ask whether you can walk in without pre-registering, and whether there is any cost at the door.

One logistics note: the Marriott shares the block with the Dignity Health Convention Center at 801 Truxtun, so parking there fills fast when anything else is running the same morning.

💵 What Health Care Actually Pays in California Now

This is the part most Kern County job seekers still do not know, and it changed the math on every one of these jobs. California runs a separate minimum wage schedule for health care workers, layered on top of the statewide floor, and a new step took effect July 1, 2026. Per the California Department of Industrial Relations:

$25.00 an hour at large health systems and integrated delivery systems with 10,000 or more employees, and at dialysis clinics.
$23.00 an hour at other covered health care facilities.
$22.00 an hour at community clinics, rural health clinics and urgent care clinics.
$16.90 an hour is the plain statewide minimum for everything not covered, in effect since January 1, 2026.

Safety net hospitals and county-run facilities sit on separate schedules, so do not assume a number there. And note how wide the coverage runs: housekeeping, food service, security, billing, scheduling and patient registration at a covered facility are all inside the health care wage rules. A dietary aide at a qualifying hospital is on the health care schedule, not the $16.90 one.

The facility's category sets the floor, not your job title and not where you live, so ask at the table which category the employer falls into. Treat all of these as floors rather than going rates. Experienced RNs, techs and licensed clinical staff in Kern County are paid well above them.

📋 How to Show Up Ready

Three hours is a short window. Treat it like a morning of back-to-back interviews, because wherever an employer brought a hiring manager, that is exactly what it is.

Ten printed resumes. One page. Dates and a working phone number.
Photo ID, and your Social Security card if you have it handy. Some employers start paperwork on the spot.
Copies of every license and certification: RN, LVN, CNA, BLS, phlebotomy, medical assistant, food handler.
Business casual. Not scrubs, not a t-shirt.
Arrive closer to 9:00 than to 11:30. Recruiters are fresher and the lines are shorter.
A short answer to "why health care" that is not "I need a job." Two sentences is plenty.

🔎 Where to Aim Between Now and Tuesday

Walk in already knowing what is posted. Tell a recruiter you saw their night-shift CNA opening at a specific campus and you stop being a stack of paper and start being a candidate.

Start here:

Frequently Asked Questions

When and where is the Kern County healthcare job fair?

Tuesday, September 15, 2026, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM, at the Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center, 801 Truxtun Avenue in downtown Bakersfield.

Is the healthcare job fair free to attend?

ETR has not published an admission cost, so we are not going to tell you it is free. Call Kari McLeod at (661) 747-7937 to confirm.

Do I have to register in advance?

No online registration link has been posted. ETR's fairs are generally walk-in friendly, but confirm it on the phone rather than assuming.

Which employers will be there?

ETR has not released a roster. It describes the event as bringing together top healthcare employers in Kern County, and Kern's health care sector is anchored by systems like Adventist Health Bakersfield, Kern Medical, Dignity Health Memorial Hospital, Bakersfield Heart Hospital, Clinica Sierra Vista and Omni Family Health. Treat that as background on the sector, not a confirmed attendee list.

Do I need health care experience to go?

No. ETR states that all experience levels are welcome. Health systems hire constantly into support roles that need no clinical license, including food service, housekeeping, transport, scheduling and registration, and in California those roles at a covered facility fall under the health care wage schedule.

What if I cannot make Tuesday morning?

Work the postings instead. Kern County health care hires year round, and ETR adds new fairs to its calendar every month. Start with the search links above and give it an hour Tuesday night.

Three Days Out. Start Tonight.

The difference between people who get hired at a job fair and people who collect pens is almost always the prep they did the weekend before. Create your free LocalJobPage profile and start applying to Bakersfield health care openings today, or browse every job posted in Bakersfield right now.

Employers: hiring clinical or support staff in Kern County this fall? Post your openings on LocalJobPage Bakersfield and reach local candidates who are already searching.