Job Fair OVER-SATURATION

Posted on March 14, 2008
Filed Under Advertising Mistakes, Community Partnerships, Local Level Recruiting, Job Fairs, Best Practices |

Squeezed There is officially an overabundance of Las Vegas job fairs being held. There are several, if not dozens, being held each month. I have seen some days where there are 2-3 different events going on in different areas of town. This is true over-saturation.

Some job fairs are trying to mix it up and move their event to different areas of town each time. Others slap a ‘diversity label’ on it in hopes of attracting a different type of audience, not realizing they need to change their marketing strategy to do so. And then you have colleges, universities and high schools holding events to introduce employers to their students. And this is all on top of the recent barrage of employers hosting ‘open houses’ and ‘career fairs.’

So what happens? Jobseekers get confused and irritated. They go to one event, have a bad experience and then assume that all the job fairs are the same. So they stop attending job fairs because they think they are a waste of their valuable time. Jobseekers also get confused as to what job fairs are good and which are bad. If they attend one bad event at the Palace Station, they assume all job fairs held at the Palace Station will be bad. So the Palace Station becomes tainted. Same goes with Cashman Field Center. Simply put - jobseekers don’t know the difference between the promoters. And they shouldn’t.

Employers get equally as irritated because they are not certain which events they should be going to. Some select events based upon price (which I do not feel is a good decision - see below), other based on the ‘diversity label,’ while others look at the true demographics of the jobseekers expected to attend. I have seen some job fair promoters use celebrity introductions and giveaways to attract employers to their events. (Never mind if you get good hires - you can meet someone cool and potentially win a trip to Mexico!!)

Anyway you look at it, it is confusing. Recruiting Nevada has created a ‘calendar of Las Vegas job fairs’ on its’ website for its’ clients and other employers wanting to access it at any time. We hope this will help sort through the clutter. Although Recruiting Nevada is a partner in the Opportunity Boulevard Career Fairs, we post our competitor job fair events in the calendar. If there are other events that we are not aware of, we hope that you will notify us. We want to make sure that this calendar is the most inclusive calendar of job fairs in Las Vegas.

Side Note (Pricing): Understand that a successful job fair requires two audiences: Jobseekers and Employers. In order for a job fair promoter to get a large audience to an event, they must advertise (and advertise beyond just their own media property). Many unsophisticated promoters do not understand this and attempt to enter the market using price as a key driver. It take marketing to get jobseeker attendance. And marketing costs money. So ask yourself - should you be measuring success based on the cost of the booth or the cost per qualified applicant/hire?