Dive Brief:
- CodePath.org, a computer science nonprofit, held its second annual Virtual Career Fair on Thursday. The event connects more than 200 undergraduate engineering students from diverse backgrounds with hiring managers from 15 tech employers, CodePath.org said. The company said it offers "industry-aligned software engineering training to underrepresented students" while "connecting them with tech recruiters."
- After the 2018 career fair, participating employers extended second interviews to about 55% of the students, according to a news release. The nonprofit said students were three times more likely to get a job offer after completing the program than if they had gone through the standard application process.
- "Too often, students outside the top-ranked engineering programs are overlooked for roles at the top tech companies. After months of hard work mastering engineering fundamentals, the Virtual Career Fair gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in front of hiring managers," Michael Ellison, founder and CEO of CodePath.org, said in the release. "Programs like this will be key to building a more inclusive — and ultimately more competitive — tech workforce."
Dive Insight:
The virtual career fair seems to be taking off, experts previously told HR Dive. Connecting through video saves employers and applicants time and money and allows them privacy without the distractions that a live career fair generates. There's another bonus, too: "Virtual career fairs allow recruiters to reach a larger and more diverse pool of candidates — including students located on smaller and more rural campuses — that they wouldn't normally have access to due to time, cost and travel restrictions," said Mike Cooke, account executive at Montage.
How career fairs are used can determine whether they're still viable ways of connecting employers with candidates. National Youth #HiringDay, another digital job fair, connected employers with "young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are out of school, unemployed and disconnected from our economy." This type of job fair can allow employers to fill more jobs and connect with an underserved population of young people.
