Off to the Fair to buy a Job!

A FAIR in the city!! An exciting prospect indeed. It's a time to enjoy... to go out and meet people... take part in fun events.... But job fairs are a different ball game altogether. What are they exactly?

Job fairs enable prospective employers and hopeful applicants to interact, network and if successful, help qualified people find dream jobs.

The ambience of a job fair is much like that of an ordinary fair, in the sense that there are umpteen career stalls with people mobbing each counter. Employers advertise their jobs at stalls. Some well-established companies employ event managers to plan, schedule and advertise recruitment opportunities.

For recruiting companies, the job fair recruitment efforts begin much before when they start advertising on job boards, participating-employers' sites, on their own sites, and in newspapers.

They advertise in places like college campuses and hotels, auditoriums, arenas and so on. Most fairs are free for job seekers, but some do charge a minimal entrance fee.

Since it's like an open forum, there is often stiff competition between recruiters. They deploy various tactics to attract applicants by - having attractive booths well supplied with entertainment, games, and giveaways to make it a more festive, fair-like atmosphere. Reinforcing the fact that you're "shopping" for jobs.

Job fairs are excellent places to land jobs. Some even interview and hire on the spot. This doesn't however imply that you will be handed a job on a silver platter. You'll have to market yourself by proving that you are the best choice for the job if you want your resume to at least appear in the "maybe" stack. To ensure accuracy, many job fair producers typically don't advertise all the details until about a week or two before the event.

Therefore keep an eye and ear out for such information. Ensure that you have the right date and timing. Contact organisers and participating companies (get their contact information through websites or alternatively, check the newspapers for more information).

There are even college job fairs that are typically arranged by college career cells, for entry-level jobs and internships. They are open to current students and usually recent alumni, too.

Many large companies, such as Intel, IBM, TCS, Microsoft, Wipro etc, actively recruit on campus.

Another category of job fairs is the Virtual Job Fair.

Virtual, online or even cyber job fairs are supposed to be like live events on your computer. Subsequently, what many sites call virtual job fairs are nothing more than job listings, corporate profiles, links to employers' websites and other features that many jobs banks have, but are packaged with a "virtual" label stuck on it. Some virtual job fairs simply list the dates and locations of live job fairs, which isn't very virtual, but may allow you to search for jobs and post your resume in advance.

Others get close to virtual, by neatly listing opportunities in "booths" and scheduling real-time, text chats with participating employers. Now that you are armed with the inside story, get you act together and top-shop for that top- job!

TINA MARIAM JACOB

tina.mas@cnkonline.com