Careers fair: Employer info

Increasing diversity in the workforce is not just the ethical thing to do, it’s also the best way to improve your products and profitability.

Harvard Business Review calls increased workplace diversity “a good business decision”, based on reports by McKinsey and Credit Suisse. Research also shows, they say, that diverse teams “are simply smarter. Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance.”

But deciding to increase diversity is only the first step along the path. In order create a diverse workforce, you have to first increase the diversity of your hiring pool by reaching out to new candidates. That’s where our online careers fair comes in: On one day, without leaving your desk, you can talk to women in STEM from across the UK, for as many jobs as you care to list.

The first Finding Ada Online Recruitment Fair for Women in STEM was proudly sponsored by Xero, the online accounting service for small businesses.

Online careers fairs are easy, convenient, and effective. Candidates request a video conversation with companies they are interested in, and the system automatically matches job hunter and recruiter when both are free to talk via video, audio or text. And if you see a candidate with a great CV, you can request a conversation with them. 

This makes the fair incredibly flexible: You can talk to candidates across the UK without leaving your desk!

Online fairs are also more efficient than traditional in-person fairs. Three recruiters could fit in nearly 150 ten minute conversations during the eight hour fair, and can follow up with those candidates easily and simply, through the system.

You’ll also know more about each candidate than you would at an in-person fair. Each candidate fills in a profile about their education and work experience, which you can look at whilst you chat. That means you can suggest and discuss specific jobs with each candidate, based on their profile.

Online fairs are also cost-effective. It can cost anything up to £2,000 to send three people from London to a careers fair in Manchester if they have to travel by train and stay overnight. Whereas each booth at our fair comes with three seats and unlimited job listings as standard, and prices start at just £1,250. (If you’re an SME, do get in touch about our small business discount!)

And because the fair is online, you don’t need to worry about printing marketing materials, fliers, pop-up banners, or buying freebies to distribute. And you’ll know that candidates are talking to you because they are interested in your company, rather than because they just want some free coffee!

Most careers fairs are aimed at students who have just graduated from a bachelor’s degree, but ours is a little different. To provide you with a broader pool of candidates, we’re encouraging women to apply who are at other stages of their careers:

• Bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral graduates
• Early careers job hunters, looking for their second, third or even fourth job
• Returners, women who’ve been out of STEM for whatever reason and are now looking to find a way back into the workforce

This means that you’ll reach a far wider group than you would at a traditional jobs fair at a university. Our platform, GoIntro, also allows you to select which groups you’re interested in reaching, so if you’re only after graduates, then you can narrow the field by only selecting that option.

For our first fair, we worked with universities from across the UK to promote the fair to their students and alumnae, including the UK’s biggest university, The Open University, as well as three out of the four oldest, Oxford, St Andrews and Glasgow. See a full list on our main careers page. 

These world class businesses signed up for our first fair on 1 Feb. 

Candidates will request a conversation with the employers that interest them, and the system will match you up when both your recruiter and the candidate are free. Conversations are video by default, but can be audio or text if the candidate doesn’t have enough bandwidth. You can use the text chat to send the candidate links to job postings or to further information about your company. You can then follow up with the candidate if you want to take the conversation further. 

To find out about our next careers fair, 
email Suw Charman-Anderson now!