By Dave Mendoza, Master Cybersleuth, Affiliate Partner, JobMachine Inc.
(720) 733-2022
* Contact Diversity.com directly: Bill Bargas, Director – Sales & Marketing at (678) 528-8571
www.eJobFairs.net and www.Diversity.com have joined forces to deliver diversity focused job fairs nationally.
Diversity.com, a national leader in diversity focused recruitment advertising, announced today it has partnered with eJobFairs.net, innovators of the electronic job fair venue, to offer Diversity.com branded electronic job fairs. “These live and fully interactive job fairs are not virtual.” said eJobFairs.net Chief Marketing Officer Jason Vrane “They are real events where job seekers and employers meet and interview one-one-one with each other in real time.”
Diversity.com will be offering electronic job fairs in twelve cities throughout the nation starting in January of 2008. “We are excited to be not only offering our clients job fairs, but cutting edge electronic job fairs offering them more than we ever could doing job fairs the old way,” says Bill Bargas, Director of Sales for Diversity.com.
“We are excited to be not only offering our clients job fairs, but cutting edge electronic job fairs offering them more than we ever could doing job fairs the old way Diversity.com has been offering diversity focused job postings since 1999 and has grown to service markets throughout the United States. In addition to job board postings and now electronic job fairs, Diversity.com provides creative “best diversity employer” branding programs to encourage diverse talent to review their client’s job openings.”
eJobFairs.net LLC, has been developing and conducting the electronic job fair format since early 2005. Offering employers “freedom from the booth”, their software and website allow employers and job seekers to meet online and interview live on specific dates and times for specific areas and industries or demographic interests. eJobFairs.net announced the release of version 3.0 of their software in September of this year and plans to release another upgrade sometime in 2008.
Q & A with Bill Bargas, Director of Sales, Diversity.com
Q: What were your initial experiences with Diversity recruitment events?
Bill Bargas: “At first, it was a struggle of appealing to corporate social consciousness, – making the business case on both a regulatory and public perception level that fed their bottom line. One could ‘shame’ and sometimes ‘strong arm’ a number of F500 companies to participate, however then one had the follow-up issue of displaying their weak commitment; i.e. companies would pay for a booth but not show up, would send an HR intern or a fresh HR associate. Job seekers would come armed with paper resumes and high expectations to talk to a company representative – this was not the case unfortunately . Many employers, particularly those who flew into town for the event, left feeling disappointed and not to happy with us. Since diversity recruiting had not trickled down to regional companies or non-profits they could dodge the diversity hiring issue all together.”
Q: How are present, traditional job fairs classified?
Bill Bargas: “General ( open call ) fairs and excutive fairs ( pricey open call on steroids ). We’ve since attended a few diversity job fairs in recent years . We discovered today’s job fair attendees represent a broad spectrum of diverse cultures, races, life styles etc. Many F500 companies are branding diversity hiring programs, regional companies and non-profits are there competing for talent. That’s wonderful. However,the HR associate now asks the job seeker to submit their resume using the company’s HR applicant tracking system. Essentially, diversity recruitment has begun a shift with the emphasis being on developing online employment brands and attracting diversity candidates.”
Q: How are online job fairs beneficial?
Bill Bargas: “Employers love the format of an electronic job fair. Here’s why we think it’s beneficial: Employers are able to talk with as many of the attendees as they wish without leaving their office, home or the beach. Likewise, job seekers, especially passive diversity talent, can log in at the designated time feeling they have been invited to participate in a very private detailed discussion with company recruiters and / or hiring managers. Win, lose or draw the job seekers exit the electronic job fair feeling good about the companies participated. Imagine that.”
Q: Wouldn’t be more cost effective to just post the position(s) on a job board or in fact, just participate in a traditional job fair?
Bill Bargas: “Traditional job fairs, on average, cost twice as much as an electronic job fair and that’s before paying the cost of travel, labor and display set-up. We think this is a great add-on to our job board,Diversity.com. Now, we can offer our clients the opportunity to source candidates utilizing job fairs, creative job posting and diversity branding.”
For more information, contact Diversity.com directly: Bill Bargas, Director – Sales & Marketing at (678) 528-8571
www.diversity.com
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