BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- The competition was fierce at the annual Harvest Job Fair.

When the gates opened at the Kern County Fairgrounds at 9 a.m. Thursday, organizers say a thousand people were waiting. By 11 a.m. that number more than doubled to 2,500.

The applicants came from all walks of life and with very different backgrounds.

Taft native Marshall Moree spent more than 25 years of his life, "In the aerospace industry."

Jonathan Herrera had, "12 years customer service."

Recent technical school graduate Laporsha Gage had experience in the medical field.

Kerri Russell, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and a teaching credential, was looking to start her teaching career.

Those are just a few of the more than 3,000 of people who came out to the job fair to find work, but they won't have an easy time of doing it. About 75 employers attended the job fair, and there were about 975 jobs to fill.

Employers came away from the fair with hundreds of applications and resumes and, in many cases, the applicants are more than qualified to do the job. One employer looking to fill a senior home care position was shocked that someone with a Ph.D applied for the position.

Herrera doesn't have that educational background, but after being out of work for six months, he says he's open to anything.

"My last job they were doing layoffs, and since then I haven't really found anything," said Herrera.

Gage has only been looking for about two months, and she's hopeful she'll find work here.

"I've already put in 10 resumes and applications and I'm still going booth-to-booth until I find a job. Hopefully, somebody calls me back."

While the process can be daunting, Gage is staying optimistic.

"I got my fingers double crossed," she laughed.

But others like Russell, who graduated in January and still hasn't found work, are starting to get anxious.

"I thought it would be really easy, but in this economy it's hard for everyone," she said.

While the competition for jobs is stressful for the applicants, it's great for the employers.

Carmen Bernal with the United Way of Kern County got hundreds of applicants for one marketing position; she knows her hire is somewhere in her massive stack of applications.

"I met some awesome people," she said. "Made a lot of check marks on these (meaning), got to call."

Job seekers are hoping one of those calls will be to their phone.

"If I could get a job somewhere else, I would take it," said Gage. "Any work is good work."