Recruit
Virtual job fairs expand access, increase efficiency
LED FastStart’s interactive recruitment solution takes employers deeper into Louisiana’s talent pipeline
Workers exploring opportunities during the pandemic demand remote options for connecting with companies. LED FastStart responded quickly and creatively to that seismic workforce shift by facilitating virtual career fairs for dozens of companies hiring in Louisiana.
Targeted job seekers register through LED FastStart’s online recruiting portal, where they can explore details about hiring companies and the skill sets they are looking for. During the event, candidates navigate from one virtual booth to another, interacting via chat or videoconference with representatives from different companies or, for single-company events, with hiring managers from different departments.
More than 1,400 job seekers have participated in LED FastStart virtual career fairs to date, allowing employers to screen a large pool of qualified candidates who might never have engaged them otherwise.
FUJI Vegetable Oils
A leading producer of food ingredients, FUJI Vegetable Oils partnered with LED FastStart for a virtual job fair to hire 37 production workers for its Avondale plant. Tactics to attract candidates included hosting a custom event page, creating an online event invitation, and printing postcards with a QR Code to access the event.
The outreach campaign resulted in 356 complete registrations and 249 attendees – an attendance rate of 70 percent, 20 percent higher than the industry average. More than half of the 202 participants who completed virtual chats with company representatives were advanced through the hiring pipeline: 103 were invited to a second screening, 14 were fast-tracked directly to formal interviews, and nine were added to prospect lists for future openings.
Rural Sourcing
A software development firm, Rural Sourcing announced the opening of a new Baton Rouge office in November 2021 and needed to ramp up quickly by filling 50 positions in Q1 2022.
LED FastStart engaged with Rural Sourcing to kick-start their recruitment push with a virtual interview-only job fair. To filter out tech career aspirants unqualified for the highly specialized positions, FastStart devised a pre-screened, invitation-only format.
Positions were posted on the LED FastStart Recruiting website and promoted across social media channels. Resumes were collected by FastStart and sent to Rural Sourcing for internal screening. Qualified applicants received personal invites from the company to the event.
FastStart generated 67 applicants for Rural Sourcing. More than one-third made it to the interview round. All 23 invitees attended the event, an unheard-of participation rate of 100%.
“Strong results all around,” said Tara Crabbe, Rural Sourcing’s Talent Acquisition Manager, Community Outreach Programs.
FUJI Vegetable Oils and Rural Sourcing are just two of the more than 40 companies to benefit from LED FastStart Virtual Career Fairs in the last year. The others:
• AFCO (Alexandria)
• 1,4GROUP (Ascension Parish)
• BENTELER Steel / Tube (Shreveport)
• Bollinger Shipyards (Houma)
• Calls Plus (Lafayette)
• Canfor Southern Pine (DeRidder)
• CDIT (Slidell)
• CGI (Lafayette)
• Citadel Completions (Lake Charles)
• Click Here Digital (Baton Rouge)
• DXC Technology (New Orleans)
• Emergent Method (Baton Rouge)
• Excella (New Orleans)
• GDIT (Bossier City)
• General Informatics (Baton Rouge)
• Geocent (Metairie)
• Globalstar (Covington)
• GreenQube (Monroe)
• Gulf Island Shipyard (Houma)
• High Voltage (New Orleans)
• Hubig’s Pies (New Orleans)
• IBM (Baton Rouge, Monroe)
• Interfor (DeQuincy)
• Intralox / Laitram (Harahan)
• KME Ferrara (Holden)
• L3 Harris Technologies (Lafayette)
• Levelset (New Orleans)
• LHC Group (Lafayette)
• Netchex (Covington)
• Perficient (Lafayette)
• Performance Software (Metairie)
• Pixel Dash Studios (Baton Rouge)
• Praeses, LLC (Shreveport)
• Premier Health (Baton Rouge)
• Prokeep (New Orleans)
• S&W Wholesale Foods (Hammond)
• SafeSource Direct (Lafayette)
• SchoolMint (Lafayette)
• SCI (Multiple Louisiana locations)
• SNF Flopam (Plaquemine)
• Southland Steel (Amite/Greensburg)
• Sparkhound (Baton Rouge)
• StrikerVR (New Orleans)
• Stuller (Lafayette)
• Syrah Technologies (Vidalia)
• Vidalia Mills (Vidalia)
“LED FastStart realized that we needed to change course and in doing that came up with a virtual job fair platform, and it worked really well. We were really appreciative of the fact that they thought out of the box and tried to come up with a new way for us to do this. It was the best way to recruit, and what it also allowed us to do is to be able to continue to have our name out there and continue to have those events because they were important.”
