Up to 10,000 people attended a free careers event in Dublin at the weekend in the hope of picking up one of the 2,500 jobs on offer.

Queues for the Career Zoo in the Mansion House stretched as far as St Stephen’s Green at times during the weekend and organisers said they ran out of delegate packs yesterday afternoon because more people attended than had been anticipated.

The event featured 55 exhibitors from the education, employment and enterprise sectors including multinational and Irish organisations seeking employees.

Start your own business advice was also on offer along with educational courses.

The majority of jobs available were in IT with employers such as Twitter, Amazon.comand Ericsson present and offering work to suitable candidates. There were also jobs in the finance sector with companies such as Deloitte and Ernst Young.

The pharmaceuticals and biomedical sectors were also represented at the event. Johnson Johnson was seeking candidates for its manufacturing plants in Cork and Limerick while Abbott had job opportunities in Donegal, Sligo and Cork.

Jackie Slattery, director at Career Zoo, said employers at the event had seen good quality candidates and had scheduled many interviews for the coming weeks.

There had also been a lot of interest in “conversion courses” which help train people to work in growing areas of employment.

The courses were free and those on Jobseekers Allowance could generally keep their payments, she said. She added that the event would be repeated later in the year, but probably at a larger venue.

Speaking after the event, a spokesman for Cork-based company EMC Ireland said they hoped to hire from the talented individuals they had met during the weekend.