virtualcareereventTotal Users registered
+40,000
Total Booth Visits
138,899
Total Employers registered
60
Total applications
192,640
University students registered
10%
Total Jobs posted
440

When Mr. Nasir Ali Khan, Pakistan Tobacco Company Talent Sourcing Manager, decided to participate in the ROZEE.PK virtual job fair in May, he wanted to make sure his booth represented the company’s culture of excellence. So he set out to make his virtual booth the most attractive HR booth at the fair.

Like at other company booths, visitors to the Pakistan Tobacco virtual booth could text chat live with the company’s recruitment staff, read about openings at the company and download information about the agency.

“We gave jobseekers from remote areas and cities an opportunity to get to know us and to connect with us directly,” says Mr. Nasir Ali Khan.

The stupendous advancement in software technology has made it possible to create ever more realistic scenarios of booths and simulated lobbies. This enables virtual job fairs to use video, voice and text to connect job seekers with recruiters in a universe that spans all of Pakistan’s provinces – Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP, AJK, Federal Territory and Punjab.

Mr. Asfar Ahsan, a leading HR Consultant and CEO Nutshell Forum says that the virtual job fair is still in the early adopter phase — meeting a candidate face to face has its unique benefits –but Pakistani companies that consider themselves on the leading edge of human resources are observing the staffing opportunities derived from the promising virtual world.

Many students and professionals think that the ROZEE.PK virtual job fair was almost like the regular job fairs that the jobsite organizes annually. They visited booths, submitted resumes and business cards, participated in live chats, and got contact information from recruiters.

Mr. M. Mudassar Aqil, General Manager HR & QA Division, Bank Alfalah Limited, says that the technology for Virtual Job Fairs has emerged and become an immersive experience for his bank’s HR. Bank Alfalah was a leading sponsor of the virtual fair in May and a trend-setter for the Banking industry.

Students and job seekers could log on, click on the 60 or so company booths and enter a specific company’s virtual world where they had direct interaction with recruiters without leaving their desks.

The event orchestrated by ROZEE.PK ran from May 11th to May 17th 2009, and HR representatives were assigned several-hour shifts (from their desks) to staff the company’s virtual booth. The recruiters chatted in real time with hundreds of the 192,640 visitors to the virtual job fair.

Jobseekers were particularly excited about applying to United Nations Pakistan. There were over a dozen agencies under the UN Pakistan that posted numerous jobs related to the development sector. Pfizer and PTC chose the gold sponsor slot for the Virtual Job Fair.

SNL, as the event’s silver sponsor said that the event was heavily populated by mid and entry-level applicants –typical for all types of job fairs– although they did interview senior-level candidates and international talent as well. “The breadth of geographical diversity was terrific,” said Director of SNL, Mr. Muneeb Idrees.

Out of the 60 Employers who participated in this fair said they are enthusiastic about being able to span time zones and man booths with qualified staff without having to pay travel or booth construction costs. Likewise candidates like to be able to visit several companies without leaving their desk and avoid running into the HR manager from their company at the next booth.

Plugging in the Universities

Job Fairs are typically limited in their ability to connect Academia with Industry. This was not the case at the ROZEE.PK Virtual Job Fair — a sophisticated online platform was offered for FREE to placement offices to link over 40 live university portals with the companies advertizing jobs. Students and fresh graduates across the country could apply directly to internships and Management Trainee Programs.

Nicholas Sharaf, a student currently interning at VAS Segments, Telenor, logged into the Virtual job fair tagged as Computer Systems Engineering, Batch 16 at GIKI Portal, and developed a keen interest in the Telecom Industry. What started off as an extra credit activity form his professors encouraged him to match his theory work with cutting-edge industry work. “I thought I will investigate the job market when its time, but through GIKI’s campus portal, I was on the path to discovery earlier in my educational career, sitting all the way in Topi, NWFP.”

Similarly the online platform enriches different industries to be winners of the flexible talent search process, particularly the Oil and Gas industry that participates cautiously in online recruitment. Mahreen Mumtaz found a job as a HR Transaction Administrator at Schlumberger though ROZEE.PK. “Ordinarily, I would have not visited a job board, but the Virtual Job Fair seemed exciting and convenient, and that is where I saw the ideal job,” she said.

According to the data at ROZEE.PK 40,000 registered candidates created profiles before the event listing their name and contact, education, location, current employer, industry and job preferences. When a candidate clicked on a recruiter’s booth to enter it, the recruiter could see the candidate’s full profile and decide how to interact with the visitor.

In times when employers are cautious in announcing posts there were over 60 companies and 40,000 job seekers who attended the virtual job fair, and each booth had an average of 138,899 booth visits. At the end of the event, recruiters received a detailed report that tracked all applicants.

Pakistan’s HR Industry is ready to embrace the challenge of finding talent efficiently and cost-effectively – a successful virtual job fair stimulates a culture of instantaneous gratification and immediacy for both the talented professionals of Pakistan and the time-crunched HR Managers that make the backbone of this economy.

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