San Francisco cannabis job fair draws hundreds to Regency Ballroom

The GreenRush Cannibis Job Fair took place at the Regency Ballroom at 1300 Van Ness Ave. on Saturday, April The event was attended by hundreds of Bay Area professionals attempting to find their place in a burgeoning industry.

There were a myriad of vendors and companies vying for their attention, with booths representing clubs, collectives, delivery services and publications in the MMJ (Medical Marijuana) industry.

The most common jobs being offered, and perhaps the most highly sought after, were those of budtender (similar to a salesperson at a retail store) and delivery driver, two jobs that would twenty years ago been highly enshrouded by the shadows of the black market.

Now out in the light, people are finding that this once stigmatized “drug” has a valid place in western medicine.

The most prized experience in the eyes of the companies, however, was web and mobile application developer.

Two other major industry events also took place this past month (another job fair on April 10 and a major investment summit on April 17). It seems the Bay Area is getting a head start on the proposed November legalization and finally treating Cannibis as the cash crop it really is.

A major facet of being recognized as just another industry is acting like one. For most of the companies on the rise, that means joining the 21st century and streamlining their online business as much as possible — most of these enterprises don’t have storefronts, after all.

A much more common business model is to scrap the traditional brick and mortar design and simply run a delivery service — the companies with this specialty were so numerous they had their own annex
off to the side room.

In the main area, representatives from traditional storefronts (such as Berkeley Patients Group, which is California’s longest continuously operating dispensary and was opened in 1999), rubbed
shoulders with edible producers (such as Strovia, manufacturers of medicated lozenges).

The event was very well attended, with GreenRush staff managing the line that was consistent outside the venue all day, and thousands of jobseekers passing through the doors over the course of the day.

In the final hours of the event, it seems even the vendors weren’t prepared to be so inundated with prospects.

Many were improvising by finding random sheets of paper to continue their mailing list sign-up sheets, resumes piled high next to giveaway pens and lighters on their tables.

Most were even down to their last business cards.

“Just take a picture, it’s my last one,” shrugged Eugenio Garcia, co-founder of Cannabis Now magazine.

“It’s a digital world.”