Far From Obsolete, Career Fairs Are a Low-Cost Way for Firms to Hire Quickly and Fill Pipelines

Summary

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In this age of Internet recruiting, career fairs and job expos have a quaint feel about them. But smart companies are using fairs to pull in highly qualified candidates and cut time to fill down to days, all at a relatively low cost. Mike D'Amico, director of compensation, benefits, staffing and HRMS at Cognos Inc, is a career fair convert. Cognos held the fair at its Ottawa facilities and staffed it with 140 employees who volunteered to work at the Saturday event. Using career fairs to hire directly from industry works well for IT companies such as Cognos that are looking for specific skills and experience. With job growth improving at most companies, career fairs are making a comeback as an effective recruiting tool. Career fairs allow companies to balance the high-tech approach to recruiting with high-touch methods and strengthen their recruiting pipelines, which becomes increasingly important as labor markets continue to tighten in many industries.

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Far From Obsolete, Career Fairs Are a Low-Cost Way for Firms to Hire Quickly and Fill Pipelines

IN THIS AGE of Internet recruiting, career fairs and job expos have a quaint feel about them. But smart companies are using fairs to pull in highly qualified candidates and cut time to fill down to days, all at a relatively low cost.

They are also discovering that career fairs can build the employment brand and fill recruiting pipelines. And when the fairs are staffed by employees, they can help build morale and turn workers into year-round recruiters.

Mike D'Amico, direc...

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