bc career fair – BC Jobs Blog https://www.bcjobs.ca/blog BCjobs Blog Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:26:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.9 What Are Career Fairs: Are They Worth It? https://www.bcjobs.ca/blog/what-are-career-fairs-are-they-worth-it/ Wed, 27 May 2020 19:40:16 +0000 https://www.bcjobs.ca/blog/?p=7306 In the realm of professional respect, career fairs are an underdog. Often portrayed as annoying obligations, career fairs may in fact be just what you need to boost your career opportunities, or hire a new star employee, or be yet another disappointment. Read on to find out how career fairs can help or harm you. […]

The post What Are Career Fairs: Are They Worth It? appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

]]>
In the realm of professional respect, career fairs are an underdog. Often portrayed as annoying obligations, career fairs may in fact be just what you need to boost your career opportunities, or hire a new star employee, or be yet another disappointment. Read on to find out how career fairs can help or harm you.

Sometimes referred to as job fairs or recruitment fairs, these events are dedicated to scouting future employees. Often hosted by universities or colleges, some fairs are designed with student’s futures in mind. There are also career fairs organized around a specific industry. These fairs welcome everyone interested in that particular field.

The Help

Typically, career fairs host stations or booths where businesses have representatives to answer questions and scout for new talent. There will be presentations throughout the event. They may be in the form of seminars or panel speakers. These presentations can be very beneficial for gaining insight into a particular business or industry, so note your areas of interest and schedule your day.

Most career fairs won’t end with you having a firm job offer, so don’t get your hopes too high. Rather, these fairs are an opportunity to learn from leaders in your field, and form relationships to help further your career. This may come in the form of a future employer, business partner or mentor. To ensure you’re putting your best foot forward, make sure you’ve appropriately prepared for the career fair.

The Harm

Though there can be splendid opportunities found at career fairs, not all fairs are created equal. Some fairs may truly be a waste of your time. With the dawn of the Internet age, talent scouting, recruitment and job hunting have become more and more accessible without the need to attend a fair.

Attending a career fair with little opportunity or participation will be a waste of your time. You may end up walking away with nothing more than a bag full of branded pens and notepads. If businesses aren’t really invested in hiring (and are taking part out of obligation), you may end up being endlessly directed to filling out online applications. That’s not a position you want to put yourself in, your time is valuable!

Check out Workopolis’ guide to the best career fairs in Canada to help you pick out the fairs worth attending.

Virtual Fairs

While not a solid replacement for a face-to-face, virtual fairs offer some advantages.  Since CoVID-19 has changed much of the business world, virtual fairs are currently trending. Some platforms have launched specifically from CoVID-19, but others existed prior to the pandemic and should be considered as more reputable options.

When considering a job fair, prioritize fostering relationships for the future as well as the present. You never know when you may need those connections along the way.

BCJobs Virtual Career Fairs

On May 13, the largest virtual career fair in BC was hosted by BCJobs.ca in partnership with BC Tech Association, WorkBC, and HR Tech Group. The event featured 200 attendees, including 15 moderators and company representatives from 9 organizations. Follow our Meetup Group and Eventbrite Page to be notified of the next virtual career fair.

Click below to learn more about our virtual career fairs.


About the Author

Simon Chou is the Vice President of Operations and Growth at BCjobs.ca. Over the course of his career, he carved a niche in brand development,  marketing strategy, and online presence for startups. Prior to BC Jobs, he served as a marketing advisor for high-profile blockchain projects including Litecoin, NEM, and Ripple. He’s also worked with fortune 500 companies in the healthcare space.

The post What Are Career Fairs: Are They Worth It? appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

]]>
Virtual Career Fair – May 13th – Virtual Tech Talent Day https://www.bcjobs.ca/blog/virtual-career-fair-may-13th-virtual-tech-talent-day/ Fri, 15 May 2020 23:11:22 +0000 https://www.bcjobs.ca/blog/?p=7271 Thank you to all candidates, moderators and company representatives for attending Virtual Tech Talent Day on May 13th 2020. Over 200 people were in attendance. We hope everyone made some new connections and had fun, engaging conversations with this new virtual career fair format. Good luck job seekers, we hope you can stand out to […]

The post Virtual Career Fair – May 13th – Virtual Tech Talent Day appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

]]>
Thank you to all candidates, moderators and company representatives for attending Virtual Tech Talent Day on May 13th 2020. Over 200 people were in attendance. We hope everyone made some new connections and had fun, engaging conversations with this new virtual career fair format. Good luck job seekers, we hope you can stand out to your desired companies. And thank you to all the companies involved for trying out this new career fair format. Recruitment is not always easy, but we hope we were able to support you during these uncertain times!

Attendee Overview

Total Attendees:

  • 185 candidates
  • 15 moderators & company representatives

Candidate Highlights:

  • 40% had 5+ years of experience
  • Areas of expertise included developers, QAs, data analysts, IT and DevOps engineers, UI/UX design and project managers.

Virtual Career Fair – Event Format

With this virtual career fair, every candidate had a chance to speak with and meet recruiters and technical reps from Vancouver’s top tech companies in a friendly and easy-going video chat format. Candidates found this to be the most beneficial element of virtual career fairs. On the company side, representatives found the format to be smooth and seamless, closely mimicking physical career fairs. Overall, the event was a success, and allowed candidates and companies to meet amidst the COVID pandemic.

Attending Companies

Aquatics Informatics (Siobhan O’Beirne, Alla Mokhnachyov & Tom Smith)

Aquatic Informatics is the trusted provider of water management solutions to over 1,000 municipal, federal, state/provincial, hydropower, mining, academic, and consulting organizations in over 60 countries that collect, manage, and process large volumes of water data. 

Best Buy Canada (Nidhi Kaushik & Karan Satija)

The technology team at Best Buy Canada has been on an incredible journey the last few years, creating first-to-market initiatives for their customers. By adding the latest development languages to their tech stack, their talented tech team has established Best Buy Canada as the best Omni-channel experience within the retail industry.

Thinkific (Dalena Nguyen & Sarah Maledy)

Thinkific is made up of a diverse team—made up of 50% female staff and representing 21 different countries. This has been a big part of Thinkific’s amazing work culture. Thinkific works in Ruby on Rails, React, Ember, deployed wholly on AWS. The team believes in shared code ownership, in code quality via collaboration and honest code reviews. Thinkific is not afraid to adopt new tools wherever it makes sense and has a very open environment where everyone’s opinion is valued. If you’re interested in Thinkific, visit their jobs board here: https://www.thinkific.com/careers/?gh_src=3ad0e0ca2

Terminal.io (Vladimir Djordjevski & Mark Prettyman)

Terminal is a remote teams engine that matches engineers with innovative companies. We proudly recruit, house, support and nurture developers so you can work for a dynamic company from the comfort of a workspace near you – surrounded by a friendly community of your peers.

BCIT (Cynthia van Ginkel, Donna Turner, Neda Changizi, Mike Starkey & Jason Harrison)

BCIT helps prepare the next generation of technology professionals to explore the opportunities within it. At BCIT Computing you will join a team that utilizes your experience, your training, your passion for technology, and your passion for teaching and mentoring to help students learn to turn big challenges into new solutions. Learn more.

Work Safe BC (Asma Koubaisi)

WorkSafeBC is a provincial agency dedicated to promoting safe and healthy workplaces across BC. They are a dedicated IT team of 300 professionals that love to make a difference. WorkSafeBC loves innovation and strives to improve services to meet the needs of our internal and external stakeholders by encouraging and adopting new technologies. 

Moderators & Partners

BC Tech Association (Surjit Uppal & Jill Tipping)

The BC Tech Association (BC Tech), formally the British Columbia Technology Industry Association (BCTIA), is a not-for-profit member-funded trade association in British Columbia, Canada, which promotes the technology industry in the province. BC Tech has a membership base of over 2,100 companies ranging from start-ups to established organizations, and spanning a variety of technology-related sectors natural resources, web technology and green energy. BC Tech facilitates partnerships and programs within the BC technology industry, as well as advocates on behalf of association members and the industry as a whole.

WorkBC (Alex Bell, Anastasia Sillick, Yvette Kim & Katrina Giranimo)

WorkBC Employment Services Centres are here to help you find your next job. Some of the services include: access job search resources, employment planning, skills assessment, and training. Work BC Centres offer two main categories of service: Self-Serve Services and Employment Services. Centres are located across the Province, to find the WorkBC Centre closest to you visit their website here.

HR Tech Group (Stephanie Hollingshead)

HR Tech Group is a group of professionals working in tech companies. We produce the leading BC Tech Salary Survey and provide thought leadership, news and benchmark data to keep our members up to date on local best practices. We work with over 150 tech companies, from mid to large size in all sectors: ICT, Film/VFX, Digital Media, Clean Tech & Life Sciences. (Phentermine)

The post Virtual Career Fair – May 13th – Virtual Tech Talent Day appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

]]>