Diversity Job Fairs: Will You Hire Anyone?

Diversity Job Fairs: Will You Hire Anyone?

Put yourself in the position of jobseekers for a moment — think about the organization most people want to work with. What comes to your mind? An organization that hires to fill a spot or two to meet its diversity needs or an organization whose overall culture is built to foster diversity and inclusion? Most would want to choose the latter because these organizations will not only value an employee’s diversity but also provide infrastructure and opportunity to translate employees’ diversity into creativity and innovation.

Today, almost every organization has a non-discrimination statement appended to job descriptions. But how many of these organizations are successful in addressing implicit bias and inclusion challenges? Not many. Only a few organizations are successful because of their diversity recruiting practices, which includes hiring at diversity job fairs.

Diversity job fairs are where you will find employees who are searching for modern companies which understand diversity beyond race, ethnicity, and gender. Candidates expect that these organizations will value the diversity of their educational background, disability, sexual preference, age, gender identity, and religious affiliation.

As diversity recruiting is becoming an integral part of the recruitment process, employers are making efforts to fully integrate diversity goals and practices throughout their organization. They are also recognizing that innovation and creativity originate from a diversity of talent within an organization. For organizations, diversity job fairs are an opportunity to build a reputation, showcase their brand, promote their services, find a pool of diverse, multilingual, and multicultural professionals, and screen professional candidates like you.

How are diversity job fairs different from traditional job fairs?

Diversity job fairs are efficient in connecting diverse candidates with employers who are looking to build connections with a pipeline of new and diverse talent. Diverse employees have been shown to increase company revenue and company creativity, among many other benefits. Diversity job fairs:

  •  Give companies an opportunity to connect with high-quality candidates who come from unique backgrounds with unique talents, ways of thinking, and expertise
  • Provide a space for companies to truly communicate a desire to hire using less biased hiring procedures
  • Offer companies a way to communicate company culture and attract top talent

How do diversity job fairs work?

The core concept of diversity job fairs is to create a space for:

  1. Employers to provide opportunities to potential candidates to get a sense of diversity in their workplace and engage the best, most relevant job seekers who are also diverse
  2. Job-seekers to evaluate their future employers and ask questions about work culture and workforce diversity
  3. On-the-spot interviews and more efficient talent pipelines

Diversity job fairs are an opportunity for companies to use hiring strategies that are totally different than what may be used at traditional job fairs. Employers are encouraged to talk about how their overall culture will be conducive for candidates from different backgrounds. Employers often are:

  • Committed to creating a diverse workforce
  • Realistic about job requirements to ensure that talented candidates are not excluded from the recruiting process
  • Believing that the most diverse pool of applicants leads to the highest quality hires
  • Ensuring that the job descriptions appeal to a diverse pool of candidates
  • Understanding that diverse candidates will help their organization grow and solve challenges effectively

Will diversity job fairs get you top talent?

Yes, diversity job fairs can be a ticket to hiring top talent. At diversity job fairs, you will meet candidates face-to-face and ask candid questions about how candidates could use their diverse backgrounds to solve the unique challenges faced by your organization, which might be overlooked in traditional hiring atmospheres. You will also get a chance to converse with candidates about how they can use their diverse experience and help to identify impending issues and communication challenges that your organization may encounter while satisfying the needs of a global and diverse customer base.

Diversity job fairs are known for their mature recruiting process. These job fairs have optimized well-defined procedures to eliminate unpredictability around the hiring process and yield quality results. The hiring process at diversity job fairs is straightforward: hire for building a culture and not for “fit”. Hence, candidates will find themselves in positions where their bilingualism, and diverse cultural experience will be valued and regarded as assets, and companies are offered high-quality unique talent.

Cherise Tolbert

Cherise Tolbert enjoys being an influencer for DiversityJobs.com and LatPro.com, and has written articles for countless top-ranking employment-related blogs including CareerMetis, Latino LA, The Voice of Jobseekers, CareerPivot, and Hispanic Trending. Cherise has her Master’s in Media Studies from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and a B.S. in Public Communications with a minor in Community and International Development from The University of Vermont. She has worked in communications for almost a decade including in higher education and non-profits. She also is a collegiate adjunct instructor teaching courses in Communications, Mass Media, Digital Culture, and Professional Writing. Article co-author: Jigna Kotecha.

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