Recruiting at Career (Job) Fairs

Purpose of Process:

Career (Job) Fairs can be an effective recruitment source. Depending on the particular career fair, a company may see more than 100 applicants in a single day.

Recommended Steps in the Process:

  1. Acquire a display booth. Perhaps the marketing department has a booth you can borrow. Preview the career fair to generate ideas on booth setup and to get an idea on the size of applicant traffic.

  2. Secure a desirable booth location, near the entrance or in another high traffic area.

  3. Determine which giveaways (pens, pencils, etc. with the company logo), if any, will be distributed to career fair attendees. (Contact Auxillium West for a list of vendors)

  4. Prepare written material on the company and on employee benefits for distribution to potential candidates at the career fair.

  5. Create a large poster board to display all current job openings.

  6. Schedule hiring managers to work at the career fair

  7. Provide the career fair organizers with a list of names of all the company representatives who will attend the career fair, so they can supply name tags.

  8. On the day of the fair bring the following items:
    • List of current job openings' binders,
    • Giveaways,
    • Pens,
    • Staplers,
    • Business cards, and
    • Company information and employee benefit information material.

  9. Immediately after the career fair, determine which candidates to invite for an interview, then schedule the interviews.

Process Tips:

Participation in a career fair is generally cost effective if the company has multiple job openings. Just a few hires from the career fair can justify the cost in terms of registration fee and time commitment. Responding quickly to career fair applicants is critical, since they probably made contacts with numerous other companies.

Sending hiring managers to a job fair is a competitive advantage over other companies who only have Human Resources people in attendance. In addition, the hiring process will be expedited because the hiring manager has already made an initial contact with the candidate.

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