The Kyiv Post Employment Fair held its biannual career event for the 16th year and, for the first time, online because of the COVID‑19 pandemic.
Usually the fair would gather thousands of job seekers and dozens of companies physically under the same roof, once in the spring and again in the fall.
But with the ban on large gatherings, the Employment Fair took place on social media from Sept. 22–24. The spring fair, striking at the start of the pandemic, was cancelled altogether.
Nine companies and organizations presented themselves. The schedule included online interviews with job seekers, online seminars and social media informational posts.
The participants were: American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, MORIS law firm, Mars, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Project Co-ordinator, ProCredit Bank, Volia, ControlPay, National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service (NAUCS) and the Kyiv Post.
Online interviews
One of the fair’s attendants was Tetiana Sliusarchuk. She worked in the banking sphere in Lviv for 10 years and then moved to Kyiv. Sliusarchuk started a new job in the capital but then had to quit soon after.
But thanks to the employment fair, Sliusarchuk got in touch with the ACC at the event. During the online fair Sliusarchuk had an online interview with ACC which is currently searching for a policy officer on sustainability issues. In total, ACC invited two candidates out of the seven offered by the Kyiv Post for 30-minute online interviews.
“I talked to the HR of the company I’m interested in working for. This contact, which I succeeded to establish thanks to the Kyiv Post Employment Fair, is definitely valuable to me,” Sliusarchuk says.
Semotyuk Anyuta, HR director at ACC, says that the event was a success as well, especially considering the pandemic restrictions.
“The team of the Kyiv Post has coped with this challenge very creatively, offering an online format that still allowed us to present ourselves as an employer in the media, including social networks… and get responses from the best candidates, and meet potential candidates in online interviews,” Anyuta said.
Online seminars
Volia, ControlPay and NAUCS chose another format to attract job-seekers — through online seminars that were posted on Kyiv Post’s social media on Sept. 23–24.
Volia is a Ukrainian telecommunication service provider that has 22 branches employing 2,300 people.
Nina Karmazina, head of recruitment at Volia, told how the company hires employees, adapts them to a new job environment and helps employees to be promoted. According to her, Volia has HR employees who provide psychological help in the company and help new workers to adapt.
Karmazina said that it was the first time when Volia participated in such an online format of an employment fair.
“This is similar to a format of a webinar conference where we can share some conclusions and lifehacks with students, with young job seekers in simple phrases,” Karazina said.
However, she misses the usual offline career events since the online format doesn’t allow to communicate directly with students, share company case studies, or conduct mini-interviews in person.
In turn, NAUCS specialists told how to get a job in the civil service sector, what requirements a candidate should meet, and how to apply for a job.
Within three days the Kyiv Post shared dozens of profiles of companies on its pages on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This helps companies to develop their HR brand or find candidates for open job positions, according to Karmazina.
The Kyiv Post publishes vacancies from international companies and organizations on its website, in its weekly print edition published on Fridays and also sends out a weekly Employment Digest every Monday.
