With retail giant Target Corp. set to open its first two Hawai'i stores in early 2009, the hunt is already on to fill the up to 600 expected job positions.

The nation's second largest discount retailer took part in its first Job Quest Job Fair yesterday at the Neal Blaisdell Center Exhibition Hall. Less than an hour after setting up its booth, a Target official said response from job seekers was "overwhelming."

David Neisen, Target senior executive recruiter in Alaska and Hawai'i, said people were inquiring about a range of positions, from store managers to cashiers.

"Some of them are looking for a change," Neisen said. "It's a new company that they're sort of familiar with. We have a good reputation both on the Mainland and in the Islands, and I think they're drawn to that."

Target plans to open a 135,000-square-foot store at the former Costco site in the Bougainville Industrial Park and a larger store in Kapolei in March 2009. The Minneapolis-based company will employ between 200 and 300 people per store.

Neisen said the company already is recruiting and hiring store supervisors, who will spend more than a year on the Mainland training.

"We relocate them to Seattle and Portland to train them there so they do the job for a year and year and a half and they come back and they open the stores here and they've got the Target experience," he said.

Neisen said Target also is aware of the tight job market here and that finding qualified employees will be difficult. He said that's a big reason Target decided to participate in the job fair.

"It'll be challenging, but I don't think that we'd be spending the money that we're spending if we didn't think it were possible," Neisen said. "We try to make sure that we are an employer of choice so even in a tough market we get good people."

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com.