Bayt.com, the Middle East’s number one job site, in a first of its kind event, recently welcomed more than31,000 job seekers online to the Virtual Job Fair – equating to around double the average visitor numbers that attend regional physical job fairs. Running on Bayt.com’s website for five days between June15th and19thth2008, the Bayt.com Virtual Job Fair offered both employers and job seekers a convenient and hassle-free opportunity to interact and to explore potential job openings throughout the GCC region.
As part of the initiative, Bayt.com constructed animated3D “Virtual Booths” on the website for the different participating companies, which received approximately115,000 booth visits across the five-days. Virtual booths, like physical job fairs, were branded with the exhibitors’ names and logos and provided access to a range of information about that particular company.
A total of330 new jobs were on offer during the job fair from some of the region’s major employers, including the event’s main sponsor Emirates Group. Job seekers had the opportunity to submit their CV to the booths of their choice and directly apply for advertised jobs; while job seekers and employers had the unique option of interacting in real time via online or video chat.
“More and more people today are looking towards the internet to facilitate their daily lives, and seeking employment is no different. At Bayt.com we are committed to continually facilitating the process for employers to actively find, interact with, and recruit relevant job seekers; and for job seekers to easily find the newest and most exciting jobs in the Middle East from some of the best employers in the region and further afield,” commented Bayt.com’s CEO, Rabea Ataya.
Employers participating in the Middle East’s inaugural online Virtual Job Fair included heavy regional weights such as Bin Karam Group , Kamal Osman Jamjoom, DEPA United Group, Palm Utilities and Impaqta in addition to international brands such as Emirates, Siemens, Schneider, Manpower and the Leo Burnet Group,; with each of the participating companies benefitting from wide online exposure to their brands and a direct dialogue with prospecting candidates. The site displayed jobs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, KSA, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Morocco.
Speaking on the outcome of the virtual job fair, Mr. Rick Helliwell, Vice President – Recruitment, Emirates Group said, “We are delighted at the resounding responses we have received from the Virtual Career Fair, during the5 days we have had more than26,000 visits to our booth, and over9,000 unique career seekers were exposed to our brand and job opportunities. The virtual job fair has categorically reinforced the effective use of online as a preferred and convenient medium to reach out to potential prospecting candidates. We are pleased with the results thus far, particularly as this is t he first time; we are promoting Emirates Group careers using an online job fair”.
“An event such as this is an ideal forum for really bringing together job seekers and employers in this increasingly technology-savvy regional business environment. Online recruitment has a fundamental role to play in the way that companies engage and recruit their staff today, and in holding this event, we effectively trialed a process which could become widely adopted for connecting potential employees with employers, by capitalizing on the sophistication of online recruitment with sites like Bayt.com,” concluded Ataya.
For more information on Bayt.com’s recruitment events log on to www.bayt.com.