It is a common destination for birthday parties and special occasions like baptisms. 2Attending a job fair could also affect individuals through behavioral channels, such as by priming individuals to think more seriously about employment. It took place on March 1 and 2, 2011 (both weekdays), at a local meeting hall near the downtown area. While some respondents may have left immediately after receiving their vouchers, I find that getting people into the job fair led to large increases in fair participation. The Pros And Cons Of Job Fairs - List Foundation Consistent with respondents underestimating overseas wages, as seen in McKenzie et al. Job fairs can be fast-paced, overwhelming and busy. Reflecting that women receive better news about their overseas job prospects relative to men, the magnitudes of both estimates are larger for women, though the difference is not statistically significant. To increase general interest, the survey team advertised the fair using fliers and radio advertisements in the week prior to the fair.14 These efforts were effective: overall attendance was 770, and survey respondents made up 25% of all attendees. In addition, the impacts of information provision on labor market outcomes and perceptions are different from the impact of job-fair attendance. However, attendees also applied for positions as construction workers, skilled trades workers, caretakers, office assistants and receptionists, cleaners, and security guards. Even if the job interview will be scheduled at a future time, as long as youve managed to stand out in the recruiters eyes, that elusive job interview is well within your grasp. I conduct this randomized experiment in the rural Philippines, specifically in the municipality of Bulan, Sorsogon Province. There are still twelve tests across the four outcome families and three treatments, so I also report a set of p-values that are adjusted to control the familywise error rate (FWER) and a set of q-values that are adjusted to control the false discovery rate (FDR) (Benjamini and Hochberg, 1995; Holm, 1979). PDF Job Fair Toolkit: A Practical Guide and Best Practices for Organizing Table 6 shows that job-fair attendance modestly reduces the perceived likelihood of being offered a job abroad by 3.3 percentage points, though the estimate is not statistically significant. (2013) find, wage information increases both what individuals report as the likeliest wage they would earn abroad and the minimum wage they would accept, though these impacts are only statistically significant in the case of reservation wages for men. This increase is offset by a reduction in the likelihood of self-employment, rather than non-employment. Deployment Per Skill Per Sex New Hires for the Year 2010, Experimental evidence on the nature of the Danish employment miracle. Applying For Jobs Out Of State? This Resume Tip Can Help If you need help with your employee selection process, contact us today! Impact of job-fair attendance on job-search effort. Both supply- and demand-side barriers may prevent individuals from obtaining formal sector employment. Strong visual displays draw people in and numerous employers have stated that building brand awareness is a key component of participating in these public events.". This study took place in the municipality of Bulan in Sorsogon Province, located on the southern tip of the main island of Luzon, 12 h from Manila by bus. Although it was the only firm offering domestic employment, it was particularly popular with participants; nearly half (46%) of those who visited a recruitment agency booth visited the BPO firm. Intention-to-treat estimates of voucher assignment on job-fair attendance. Men and women ages 2035 were randomly assigned to receive a modest voucher conditional on attending a nearby job fair, which offered both domestic and overseas jobs. (2013). Experimental analysis of neighborhood effects. Decide on your recruitment goal Many job fairs have 25 to 50 or more employers in attendance. To generate exogenous variation in the likelihood of job-fair attendance, I assigned respondents in randomly selected neighborhoods (one-third) to receive a voucher that could be exchanged for a gift certificate worth P150 (US$3.42, roughly the cost of a dinner for a family of four) to Jollibee, a popular fast-food chain restaurant, which has a location in the central business district.15 Respondents were required to pick up the gift certificates in person at the job fair, and they could only do so during the two days of the job fair. Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, Arts Link 1, Singapore 117570, Singapore, GUID:1CC54187-2901-40B3-A578-301E64340983, Job fair, Active labor market policies, Job search, Employment, Migration, Randomized experiment. When applying for jobs out of state, one strategy is to use a friend or family member's address in that city, or just list the city without a street address on your resume. By exposing respondents to information about the labor market, job-fair attendance could also affect search decisions, possibly affecting the likelihood or direction of search. Nametags for employers and employees are a must. Learning about job search: a field experiment with job seekers in Germany. Experimental evidence from India. One related set of papers by Dammert, Galdo, and Galdo measures the impact of providing digital information about job postings to unemployed workers in Peru (Dammert et al., 2013, 2015). According to a report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), it costs employers an average of $4,129 and takes an average of 42 days to fill an open position. Sample restricted to endline respondents with non-missing values for the respective outcome variable or baseline beliefs. Missing values for passport-holding and perceived likelihood of job-finding abroad are coded as zero and missing data flags are included. (2013), attending the job fair increases what they expect they could earn abroad by PHP6512 (US$149, 26%). 8600 Rockville Pike To better understand the landscape of fair pay, Indeed surveyed 1,500 U.S. workers from across a variety of industries and career levels in . Some employers at a job fair will take your resume and look at it, talk to you about your experience, and offer suggestions on experience to include, what you may need to add, and what to take off Create a memorable experience for employers and job seekers by anticipating their needs. However, the information treatment impacts cannot fully account for the impact of job-fair attendance on labor market outcomes and perceptions. The experience of presenting oneself professionally and interacting with different people is an extremely valuable use of time during the job-search. Consequently, the mean rates at which respondents take steps to migrate are low even among the control group: fewer than two percent of respondents look for overseas work in the ten months following the job fair.30 If respondents learn that the process is, in fact, harder than they originally thought (as the results on overseas labor market perceptions suggest, especially for men) many potentially qualified applicants may decide not to initiate the process, even after attending a job fair makes it easier to apply.31, In the presence of incomplete information, providing information about average overseas wages and minimum qualifications for overseas work may help individuals better assess their own overseas labor market prospects. Tests for statistically significant differences are clustered at the neighborhood level. 26Reflecting its relative nearness compared to Manila, any search associated with the BPO firm, located in neighboring Albay Province, would be coded as within the Sorsogon region. It does not appear that those induced to attend the fair were more likely to find employment through this channel; I see no increase in migration, nor increased employment in the domestic employers industry (see Appendix Table A.7). Job information networks, neighborhood effects, and inequality, Do labor market opportunities affect young womens work and family decisions? We consistently conduct career awareness talks such as 'gearing towards the job,' 'getting that dream job,' 'interview skills,' and 'grooming training'. Terms of services I also find that the extensive-margin increase in search outside the capital is concentrated in looking for work via family and friends, rather than by applying directly. Employer branding is gradually becoming more important in C-suite conversations, but it's still a relatively new concept. "Career fairs serve as a vital bridge to connecting individuals and companies in mutually beneficial ways.". I test this first mechanism using a cross-randomized experiment that measures the impact of improving information along two specific dimensions: overseas wages and minimum qualifications for overseas work.3 Both treatments do affect respondents behavior and perceptions: wage information increases the likelihood of being employed overall and leads individuals to obtain passports as a step toward finding work abroad; meanwhile, qualification information affects overseas labor market perceptions, particularly for men. What is a Job fair like? Take time to prepare before the job fair. This is the company for you!" I use a randomized encouragement design to estimate the causal impact of attending a job fair for domestic and overseas work, focusing on job seekers employment outcomes and labor market perceptions. Governments and non-governmental agencies in the Philippines rely on job fairs as a key tool to promote employment by matching employers with job seekers (Esguerra et al., 2001), sponsoring more than 400 job fairs per year; for example, the 2013 Labor Day job fairs attracted nearly 40,000 jobseekers. While companies are required to pay a fee to participate in a career fair, the targeted approach afforded by these events helps them save money because they are able to find ideal candidates more quickly, as opposed to the alternative. I also test for the presence of interaction effects, but I do not find compelling evidence of interaction effects between voucher assignment and the information treatments on job-fair attendance or the outcome variables of interest. I find that in the medium run, job-fair attendance matters: it increases the likelihood of formal sector employment and updates attendees labor market perceptions. Maximizing the Impact of Career Fairs for Students and Employers - LinkedIn Sample restricted to endline respondents. Job fairs can also be used as an opportunity for employers to provide promotional . 32However, these results should be interpreted with some caution because of a coding error that overstated average local wages on the intervention flier, effectively understating the returns to migration. You have an opportunity to meet with non-traditional candidates. 27Table 5 restricts the sample to those who are in Bulan at the time of the endline survey, which could underestimate the impact on steps to migration. Career Fairs vs Job Fairs No respondents reported working in search engine optimization or as copywriters. Additionally, while job-fair attendance increases individuals expectations about the wages they could earn abroad and raises their reservation wages, it actually reduces their perceived likelihood of being able to deploy abroad, conditional on finding a job. Brooks says recruiters often enjoy the chance to meet and network with other recruiters and professionals in the field. Additionally, attendees could (3) learn more about how and where to apply for work by interacting with employers and connecting with other jobseekers. The first-stage is strong, yielding an F-statistic of 91.5 overall (Table 2, column 2). The exclusion restriction could also be violated if the voucher affected respondents budget constraints. National Statistical Coordination Board, 2006. Both men and women appear to underestimate what they could earn overseas, consistent with (McKenzie et al., 2013), as attendance induces them to revise upwards their expected wages and reservation wages. Job fairs for employers: How to recruit your next superstar Introduction Governments and non-governmental agencies in the Philippines rely on job fairs as a key tool to promote employment by matching employers with job seekers (Esguerra, Balisacan and Confessor 2001), sponsoring more than 400 job fairs per year; for example, the 2013 Labor Day job fairs attracted nearly 40,000 jobseekers. For a successful job fair, details make the difference. However, finding work abroad is substantially more complicated than finding work domestically. Send us your resume today.