iny-mini-miney-moe

Posted on January 24, 2007
Filed Under Online Recruiting, Community Partnerships, Job Fairs |

Which job fair do I go?

In Las Vegas today there must be a few dozen companies holding job fairs. It makes it challenging for a recruiter to choose which job fairs to attend, because they surely can not attend all of them. Nor would they want to.

Many of the job fairs are being promoted by media outlets who simply use their remnant advertising inventory to promote a live venue where they can sell booth spaces. The problem that arises is the audience of their existing readership, listenership or viewership is not large enough to attract a large attendance. In some cases the media outlet simply attracts the wrong audience.

Others are competitive job boards. Some local. Some national. Because the Review Journal will not allow them to advertise within their classified section, they can not reach beyond their existing audience. And as much as they tell you differently, not every jobseeker uses their website.

With Las Vegas having an unemployment level averaging 4%, the only folks that attend many of the job fairs are unemployed, or what we have coined as the ‘recycled workforce.’ They do not have the skills or the desire to obtain a full time job for a long period of time. They are there for the trick-or-treating of your giveaways.

In February, Recruiting Nevada will be begin to publish a list of all job fairs in the area on our blog. Although we are in the job fair business ourselves, we will put our competitor events on the website. This will provide a better level of service to our clients and we encourage all to compare our events to the others.

We are proud of the partnerships we have formed over the last few months to bring you “Opportunity Boulevard.” The primary promoter of the event is the NEWS. This suburban newspaper, owned by the Greenspun Media Group, continues to win national awards for their work and expands their circulation each and every week. Reaching in excess of 250 thousand households, the NEWs is now better read than the Review Journal. And more importantly, they care about our community.

The Nevada Broadcaster’s Association (NBA) reaches every household in Las Vegas through their member radio and television stations. Radio is known to have a 96% reach while television has a 93% reach. The NBA has been a great partner of ours in the past when we promoted Jobs America back in the 1990s. It is a true pleasure to work with them again. And just as with the NEWS, the NBA cares about this community.

Recruiting Nevada’s network of job boards has over 120,000 searches conducted each month right now. It’s target audience is relocating professionals. Over 400 relocating professionals pre-registered for the Winter Job Fair alone, including 60 healthcare professionals, dozens of teachers and several engineers. They took time out of their schedules to fly to Las Vegas to attend this event. In addition to the relocating professionals, another 1,200 jobseekers pre-registered online to attend Opportunity Boulevard.

The Clark County School District continues to promote Opportunity Boulevard to family members (we call them trailing spouses) of their new prospects, applicants, hires and existing employees. This improves the recruitment and retention program for our public educational system in Southern Nevada. We expect to expand this program into other industries that face the same recruiting challenges.

For our March event, we will partner with AARP representing a couple hundred thousand workers over the age of 50. This much sought after demographic will bring seasoned professionals to the event with proven skills and a great work ethic. With Las Vegas being the second largest retirement destination in the United States, many professionals make the move years before they are ready to retire. Many are still looking to work.

So what makes our events so successful compared to the others? Community Partnerships. We all have a common goal…help people find jobs. And help employers find qualified employees.

Other competitors do not take this approach. Maybe we should ask them why?