Hundreds of north east job seekers flocked to the Stadium of Light yesterday to attend The Job Show North East.
The jobs fair was showcasing over 1,000 vacancies and apprenticeships from a large variety of companies. Practical workshops were also on offer, on subjects such as how to write a sparkling CV, and presentations were made by companies looking to recruit.
Jobseekers could browse stalls set up by companies both large and small and speak to recruitment consultants.
The Job Show company said, “Sparked by the doom and gloom of the current tough economic climate, we recognised a need in the community to revitalise the normal way of job-seeking.”
“With today’s electronic and impersonal environment, we believe that people buy people – The Job Show allows the person behind the CV to get in front of decision makers and make a difference.”
The organiser of The Job Show North East, Victoria Clarke, said, “We’re not just here for the long-term unemployed – it’s for people who want to improve their prospects, people who are looking for a change of career, people who have been made redundant or are looking to get back into work after a career break.”
Yesterday was the second time the event had visited Wearside. The Stadium of Light also played host to The Job Show North East last year.
“What happened last year changed a lot of people’s lives,” Ms Clarke said, “so we are delighted to be back in Sunderland again.”
Sunderland firm Station Taxis, which is looking to recruit drivers, said, “We are a local company, quite different from some of the big businesses here so we did not expect that much interest.”
“But a lot of people have come forward wanting to speak to somebody face-to-face. We’ve had ten applications in the first hour.”
The Job Show company believes that “by gathering a region’s best employers, recruitment agencies, training providers, universities, colleges and organisations” together in one place, it is possible to “unite talent with opportunity and come face-to-face with top organisations seeking quality potential candidates.”
But do people really a better chance of finding a job through face-to-face networking or is most recruitment – like many other things these days – done online?
Well, a survey by American recruitment consultants Lou Adler found that while 27% of people get jobs through responding to a job ad and 14% find work via social media platform LinkedIn, an amazing 58% of jobseekers find employment through either an internal move or networking. So it seems that going to job fairs, pressing the flesh and chatting to employers does have a good chance of landing you the sort of position you’re after.
(Featured image courtesy of Ben Sutherland, from Flickr Creative Commons)
