CAREER. LIFE. SUCCESS.
By Jayjay Viray

IT’S NOT JUST ANOTHER JOB FAIR

The Philippines is probably one of the few countries that produce job fairs on a regular basis.  Our job fairs come in all shapes and sizes from the traditional ones held in colleges before or after graduation, the weekend meetings in municipalities and local government units which has jobseekers submitting their print resumes to designated officials, and the corporate-led job fairs normally seen in malls, convention centers, and other public places.

It’s probably safe to say that we put up more job fairs than our Asian neighbors.  We in JobsDB set up an average of four a month; some of these we organize ourselves, some of them we put up and run on invitation by a university, an industry association, or a government unit. 

“Why the diligence in putting them up?”, someone asked me before.  “Don’t Pinoys get tired of seeing another job fair the minute he sees another poster about it once he turns the corner?”

Well, I prefer to think that this is a case of not looking a gift horse in the mouth.  Yes, the number of job fairs may be increasing but we observe that this is because there are a lot of job vacancies out there that companies are waiting to fill – and they are willing to go to the churches, the malls, the local barangays, if necessary, to source the people they need. 

That is one positive development that we should take note of, which is happening not just in Manila but in cities like Cebu as well.

A job fair is not just a place where you look for work and drop your resume and run – it’s the real-time meeting ground for recruiters and jobseekers to assess what the other needs and how (and if) they can help each other.

The response has always been positive, and generally speaking, people are always eager to line up to see what opportunities they can avail of.

That’s one reason why we are expecting a crowd of 25,000 in our upcoming Career and Entrepreneur Fair at the World Trade Center in Pasay City  on May 21-22.  Our first CEF series – then known as Career and Education Fair – garnered a record-breaking 15,000 participants in 2006.  Jobseekers got their first experience of a paperless job fair that reduced their printing and transportation costs for job-hunting.  Our seminars which ran for two full days had SRO audiences only – not surprising, since our speakers were senior executives, presidents of companies, general managers, editors, and even a celebrity or two who spoke about talent management.

For CEF 2008, we are pulling out all stops to make this particular fair more accessible to everyone.  They welcome not just jobseekers, but small-to-medium-sized businessmen (and women), the so-called silent entrepreneurs who do business on the side, and freelancers who capitalize a skill like writing, voice-over, or playing music.

Jobseekers who want to leverage on their skills or increase their chances of being hired can benefit from the following seminars:  “Assessing How Close You Are to your Dream Job,” by Job1 Global;  “Career Management” from John Clements Consultants; “The Power of Communication as a Profession” by DZMM Radyo Patrol 630, and “The Need for Continuing Education” by Inter-Education Specialists.

Present and prospective entrepreneurs will find “Online Entrepreneurship” by Google Philippines and “Different Business Ventures You Can Get Into” by the Technology Resource Center interesting topics.

Skilled workers thinking of  finding work overseas can avoid the pitfalls of illegal recruitment in a talk by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).  Career shifters and new graduates can learn more about BPO employment in the seminar of Convergys.

We are always breaking new ground in putting up job fairs.  We hope that in the process our countrymen, from jobseekers to entrepreneurs, can find greater opportunities to maximize their potentials and better their lives.

[Jayjay Viray is the Country Manager of JobsDB Phils, Inc. For questions about this and more, please email Jayjay Viray at jayjay.v@jobsdb.com.ph.]

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This column was written before the CEF 2008 which took place last May 21-22.  To see what happened in that event, click here.