Looking for a job? Head for a fair!

New Delhi: Gone are the days when job seekers used to toe the endless queues of government-run employment exchange. Welcome to the high-tech era of job recruitment where job fairs are held almost every week across the country, making job hunting easy.

"With the help of job fairs, job seekers have the opportunity to interact with top-notch companies and they have the dual advantage of getting job offers as well as career advice in one common platform", says Moinak Roy, organiser of a job fair.

According to All India Employment Exchange Statistics 2006, there were 413.4 crore job seekers as on December 31, 2005, and only 1.73 lakh persons were provided placements during Jan-Dec 2006. The last two years have seen a negative percentage change in the number of registrations – a trend that was not witnessed since 1996.

Also, compared to 42 lakh educated job seekers who register with the employment exchanges in a year, the recent job fair in Delhi surprisingly attracted a whopping one lakh registrations in a single day.

The increasing number of registrations, employers, and job offers in every successive job fairs across the country clearly show that the job recruitment technique is catching up, Roy says, adding "as compared with the last job fair in July in Kolkata, this time (in October) we saw about 3000 plus visitors, which is almost double. It was a great success".

"In Cochin, about 9 companies, including two IT companies, took part in the job fair. Around 2000-2500 visitors turned up. Each company walked out with some 15-20 selected candidates", says Madhusudhan, organising manager of a job fair held in Cochin.

"In small towns we normally expect about 5000 visitors per day. This time, in the job fair which was held last month, the number of visitors who registered was much more than expected," says another job fair organiser, Amit Sharma, from Agra.

One of the India's largest job fairs held in the Capital recently, which had about 60 top-notch employers such as Global Vantedge, EXL, Globerian and so forth, attracted as much as 17000-18000 visitors. "The job fair was very successful," says Rashmi Mahajan, organising manager of the Big Leap Jumbo job fair held last month.

Apart from IT and ITES companies, the job fairs attract educational institutions, armed forces, logistics companies, banking sector and hospitality, as was evident in the job fair held in Kolkata, says Roy, adding that even small companies come up to build their brand name.

Very recently, a portal has introduced an eRecruitment technology which screens applications on the basis of organisation's requirement.

"Today more and more youth come to visit the job fairs. They come for jobs and career advices. Every year the increasing number of visitors shows that job fair definetely helps job seekers in career advancement", says S H Khan of India Trade Promotion Organisation.