Monster launched its free, 47-city Keep America Working Tour in New York City today amidst a flurry of media attention and a jobseeker turnout that filled the Marriott Marquis and snaked into Times Square.
“This is not just a career fair,” Monster’s Eric Weingardner told us from the hotel as he stole a few minutes from the show floor. “This is a career experience.”
OK so it’s a little bit of hyperbole, but not as much as you might think. The job fair is about jobs of course, which is what prompted some 3,500 jobseekers to pre-register for the event. But the workshops occurring every half-hour covered marketing and branding yourself, career planning and, naturally, Monster’s new, online planning tools. Monster career experts circulated among the crowd while kiosks offered tutorials on using Monster.com.
More than 1,000 jobs were available from the 92 participating employers. Big names, such as Macy’s, Manpower, and Wachovia were represented, as were smaller employers some of whom may never have participated in a job fair before.
To coax employers to participate, there is no charge. Instead, says Weingardner, vice president of client adoption, “Do you have compelling work? That’s what we’re looking for.”
Any Monster customer with jobs available can participate in any of the 140 fairs the company is planning between now and the end of the year. “The only way we could do this is to bring this in-house,” Weingardner explained. In past years, planning and management of the for-fee job fairs was done by an outside firm. In New York, 40 Monster employees are running the show produced by the Global Events Team.
Monster’s partner, Adicio, is powering the registration process and hosting the career fair information site. Different elements of its virtual career fair platform will be used according to the needs of each stop on the Keep America Working Tour. A calendar of the upcoming job fairs is available here. Companies interested in participating should contact their Monster sales rep or call 1-800-MONSTER.