The first online career fair in the Northern Netherlands, the Pre-Summer Career Event, took place on Thursday afternoon 2 July. Hundreds of talents came into contact with numerous companies online and followed webinars. "Two companies immediately announced that they had found the perfect match."
It often happens, getting lost at a career fair. Because where was the state of the company where you saw yourself working? And how on earth did you get to room 9, where an interesting speaker will tell his story in three minutes? Corona caused many events to be paralyzed, but it did not stop the continuation of the Pre-Summer Career Event, organized by Campus Groningen, Make it in the North and the municipality of Groningen. On Thursday July 2, about 350 talents from the Northern Netherlands came to the event. Online, so getting lost was almost impossible.
Advantages of an online event
A major advantage of the online event is clear; participants could easily ask their questions. "That is definitely a plus," said co-organizer Amber van der Schaaf of Campus Groningen enthusiastically. "It may be a bit strange for the speaker not to see direct reactions during his or her story, but for the participants it is more accessible to ask a question during a webinar than at a live event."
The perfect match
In addition to the wide variety of webinars, participants could request one-on-one conversations with companies. It was also possible to request information via chats. For example, a talent of the participating company Event Insight wanted to know what the culture of the company was like. After the answer that there was a lot of personal contact and a lot of cooperation, she was invited for an interview.
"Immediately after the event, I received a lot of enthusiastic reactions from companies and talents,'' Van der Schaaf said. ,, According to many, the platform was very accessible and I even got a message from two companies that they found a perfect match. That's great news, of course''. This is how Nutte van Belzen of CC Diagnostics indicated: "We already have a nice connection thanks to the event. A very good match, so I'm glad we were able to participate".
"We still have to evaluate, but this was a successful pilot," continued Van der Schaaf. "In the future we will of course want to facilitate this interaction again where we see each other in real life, but it will also take place more and more online. We want to bring talents and companies into contact with each other, on the Campus and in the region. That's extremely valuable, also online''.
