"How To Leverage Events As A Recruiting Tool"
Presented by David Childs of Living Blueprint Creative, Barry Goodwin of Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society and Alice Zhou of Altitude Recruiting.
5. Your company morale!!! (If you recently laid off 1/3 of the staff, don’t do an in house hiring fair.)External Follow Up Events: There are pros and cons when you have a follow up event externally at a hotel, or community centre. A hiring fair at a hotel will add cache and credibility to your organization, if it is well done. Ensure the HR staff who participate in the job fair and the follow up fair have great customer service, are knowledgeable and sincerely passionate about the organization. <br />If you work with a local employment centre such as Success, Multicultural Helping House Society or PICS, they will advertise, promote and organize the facility all for you. This will save you much time, energy, money, and manpower. The potential downside is you can’t control the quality of candidates walking in. <br />Internal follow up events: You will have to do serious planning and communicating with your existing staff to execute a well organized internal follow up event. One great thing is that the job candidates will get to experience every aspect of your company: facilities; transportation from their residence; security; procedures; inter department relations; cleanliness; any awards or accolades the company has won; professionalism / friendliness of the receptionist; quality of washroom; any additional facilities like cafeteria, gym, kindergarten; values of a company, attitude and vibe of current employees.<br />Talk the talk and walk the walk: Please keep in mind that the values and mission statements from your website should line up with the actual corporate culture that exists in your office. If your company claims to be a green company, make sure you have recycling bins available throughout the office. <br />How is your organization different: Provide job candidates a 360-degree view of your company. Schedule a positive employee from each department to participate and speak at this internal follow up event; keep your media trained PR spokesperson and yourself more in the background. Your job should be the one-on-one interview, but leave the talking to happy employees that are growing, thriving in the company, and have a real sense of pride. Get them to talk about their hiring process, and the progress they’ve made. <br />Here are the steps for the typical follow up event:<br />Step 1: After signing in your job candidates, conduct a 10-30 minute corporate overview presentation (values, type of positions that are open for hire, typical pay and benefits, length of time for hiring, procedures, perks, community involvement, any accomplishments of the organization, future plans for growth, where people can find more information such as annual report, or website). Make sure the slide shows pictures of team building, charity involvement, pictures of the top management down to the receptionist so job candidates can understand the reality of the culture. Look out for consistency, e.g., when your company’s mission emphasizes cultural diversity and woman in the workforce, then your upper management should reflect this.<br />Step 2: Live testimonials or play video testimonials from happy employees. The person in video will be more believable if they’re natural, and don’t appear to be a hired actor.<br />Step 3: Onsite speed interviews (10-15 minutes per job candidate). You can conduct the HR interview followed by the department interview depending on the volume of job candidates you receive.<br />Step 4: Have an area set up where job candidates may drop off their resumes, not everyone will have time to do the speed interview when you put on the open house, so be accommodating.<br />Tips: Communicate the job openings starting from your own employee base! They know people in their industry, so leverage their network.<br />Event Vendor List:<br />Tradeshow Booth: 1) www.theportables.com 2) www.exhibitreedisplay.ca 3) www.derrickexhibit.com <br />Audio Visual: 1) www.clarksav.com 2) www.avwtelav.com 3) www.christielites.net 4) www.epicpt.com 5) www.duocom.ca<br />Rentals: 1) www.abpartytime.com 2) www.surdelpartyrentals.com 3) www.chairdecor.com 4) www.offsetrentals.com<br />Special effects: 1) www.hollynorth.com (wind, fog, snow, glowbal, etc…) 2) www.performancevisualworks.com (live interactions using technology) 3) www.flagshop.com 4) www.canamimportique.com (movie sets and props) 5) www.greenscapesilk.com (trees and greenery, real and fake flowers)<br />Decorators: 1) www.roadesigns.com 2) www.bldesign.ca 3)www.wildbills.ca (pillars, décor, backdrops, props, greens, 12 full themes including winter wonderland, Hollywood, Viva Las Vegas, Casino Royal, etc) 4) www.studio96decor.com <br />Event Promotion: 1) www.streetcards.ca (postcards in 50 locations, mostly cafes) 2) Bob Tuner, Poster distribution to 300 locations in the Lower Mainland, $1 per location, 604 817-9173 turner@internetfilter.com <br />