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Monis Rehman recently stated that Rozee’s Job Fairs held is Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi attracted over 90,000 job candidates on each of the three days.
In Islamabad it sure felt like it, where by mid-afternoon there was a serious lack of oxygen in the main hall.
At the same time though, we were invited to (and went to) Campus Job Fairs at both LUMS and GIKI. Both of these were held to highlight graduating seniors, but I must say the turnout for companies was shockingly bad. At the LUMS fair I counted a total of 5 companies and some 25 odd students walking around.
Among the short amount of polls we’ve received on Green & White, it suggests the same thing (i.e. Rozee Job Fairs are better for finding candidates than Univ Job Fairs)
Given that this is just the second year Rozee organized the fairs, the shift in turnout is pretty impresive and displays characteristics of a “killer app”.
Why would companies prefer to go to Rozee Job Fairs and not to campuses?
Here’s my top 5 reasons:
5- There is too little time in the day to do work.
If you are going to ask important people to take interest in employer branding and management, they would rather just go on one such day rather than go to every college.
The interesting effect of this is that the experience for the candidates increases as well — at LUMS e.g. I saw team leads to lowlevel managers of the companies, and mostly interns, distributing promotional material and collecting resumes. At Rozee’s fair, in the morning you had some of the leading people walking around as well.
4- Big Events attract deep pockets as sponsors.
Newspaper Ads, Radio Ads, even GEO TV spots was what it took to get the average jobseeker out of his home and attend Rozee’s fair, and salesmen, marketing teams and media and production teams got companies into the fray.
Universities may not be able to do much here, but for what they can do I think they do a good job. LUMS gives out invitations to new companies doing innovative work to present at the fairs.
3- Everyone is more serious
At LUMS most of students were either hanging around with friends or just getting out of class and happened to drop by — they may not have been in the mindset to engage the companies effectively. I heard similar feedback about the students at the GIKI fair, i.e. not many were actually interested in finding jobs or engaging companies.
At the Rozee fair, an average candidate will find the opporunity to talk to atleast 20 companies, and most of the people were more dressed up on that day than they do in many interviews I sit through.
One of the obvious reasons for this would be that actual jobseekers or unemployed professionals from the market attend the job fair.
2- It has to be about having a good time
Most HR and Training related activities are centered around having a good time, and Rozee’s fair is no exception.
You have some opportunities for networking there, you get to discover new companies, trainers often set up voluntary training sessions there, there are company interviews running around the hallways — in short, it is a proper event.
1- Professional Management
If I had to pin it down to one reason, though, it would be professional management. The feedback received from both GIK and LUMS was that there wasn’t enough hands-on participation by the management committees.
Rozee’s team shined at this, so kudos to Rozee.
| Written by Osama A. on 04/24/07 in HR & Mgmt |
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May 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 am
[…] want to spread the word virally to my friends and family – if you’re a teleco, I want to buy a new connection […]
May 9th, 2007 at 2:23 am
I think if we can rephrase the heading to -
“Rozee’s Job Fairs seem to be disruptive for job seekers and the job providers ”
I have participated at Rozee fair and fair at LUMS as well. You cannot compare the two because the objective is a bit different. I want to share the outcome and pyhschological impact of these events on both the seeker and provider.
In Rozee fair I have noticed one very serious matter that our people seriously need direction, I think we need to decide what we want to do and where we want to go.
90% of the CVs have MBA Marketing, Finance, IT and HR. Do we need these MBAs and with these subjects? This myopic approach will not work!
I recently interviwed one of the young, energetic gradaute (who resigned after serving just 2 months in a growing company) from a renowned university here in Islamabad, there are 50 female graduates with MBA - HRM who passed out with ambitions and enthusiasm. For all of them please please do not loose hope and work with passion and face chanllenges. You will not find a single organization where every thing is set.
In Rozee fair 70% who applied are looking for changing their present employer when asked, the reply was: We need growth, chanllenging apportunity and more money. Let me tell you guys the best opportunity one can have is the current one.
I found two potential Chemical Engrs from LUMS and called them for interview, you know what they said after doing MBA they have changed their fields and are now working in finance department in Banks. They have wasted their engineering degree to some extent. Again lack of will and direction!
Organization has to understand empolyees expectations and its own and employees need to understand organization expectations and their own.
I was unable to find a single good candidate out of this massive explosion of CVs at job fairs. Reasone being MBA Marketing is doing Finance job and MBA Finance is doing Marketing Job.
Career Planning and Parents counseling is the need of the hour.
Fahd Khan
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:42 am
is there any search engine which gives true jobs im not getting any responce by any of the company i have applied theough rozee.pk ang gulf also and many more but im not getting any responce they all are fake im intermediate and doing bs in psychology i have good comannd in wrriting and speaking in english and i have knowledge about computer too but its of no use can anyone can tell me yyyyyy
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
simi, there are a lot of reasons that might be happening
go through some of the guidance articles on this web site regarding resume writing and following up
(they would be under HR tag on top)
make sure you are applying to jobs for which you experience and expertise matches the employers requirement, also revamp you CV if you are already qualified for a job and still not getting any interview
May 12th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Fahad the point that you are making is quite common it happens one can always switch carrers its how you feel and what comes along. I would like to give you two examples which can be taken as a precidence
1. Carly Fiona the CEO for HP was a bachelors in history before doing her MBA and she brought along the major change in HP and transformed it from a printer company to a leading company in the IT industry.
2. Steve Jobs was an expert in calligrapy has nothing to do with graphics and he is the CEO of apple.
So these examples are good enough to prove that people are free to do what they like and do best