MILITARY - National Guard Hosting Money For College Virtual Career Fair

May 6, 2010 from 10a-8p (Eastern Time) the National Guard will host a Money for College Virtual Career Fair. The layout offers a 3D Career Fair Layout that will allow users to browse different booths, talk to recruiters in the lounge and view featured programming.

This event is following their recent video promotion integrating with Facebook. http://patriotadvertising.blogspot.com/2010/04/website-army-national-guard-moments-of.html

Check out the article here:

http://www.pravenue.com/newsletter.asp?article=4289

www.NATIONALGUARD.com/virtual

NONTRADITIONAL - Government intelligence organisation targets recruits with Xbox Live ads

The British Government Agency known as GCHQ will now be running ads on XBOX Live to assist in recruiting people of ages 18-34 into their ranks. In addition to recruitment, their aim is also to get the word out about their agency and what they do because most people don't have much knowledge of the GCHQ.

Check out the links below for more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/20/xbox-gchq-adverts
http://kotaku.com/5408880/british-government-agency-to-run-xbox-live-recruitment-ads

Back on October of 2007 the GCHQ also ran ads online through Microsoft games:
'Become a spy' ads target gamers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/18/digitalmedia.advertising

NONTRADITIONAL - Gaming works magic for u.s. army

Brandflakes for Breakfast and Game Politics posted articles about the Army's use of their video game, America's Army, and how is has been used as a recruitment tool and how effective it has been in relation to other areas of advertising. Game Politics also makes a note at the impact the video game has had on recruits as far as how they react in battle and their how they receive and understand what is happening in battle as well.

Below are the links for the articles as well as the gaming site. Check them out and tell us what you think!

http://www.brandflakesforbreakfast.com/2009/11/gaming-works-magic-for-us-army.html

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/11/17/america%E2%80%99s-army-extremely-effective-recruitment-tool

http://www.americasarmy.com/

NONTRADITIONAL - Second Life used for virtual recruiting by State of Missouri

I've had this bookmarked for a while and decided to go ahead and post it.
It is a nice overview about the State of Missouri using Second Life to recruit IT professionals. What are your thoughts on virtual job fairs? I'm somewhat mixed, it really depends on the industry. As far as Second Life goes, I wonder where it falls when it comes to it's current growth and how other online networks compare.

INTERNET - The Candidate's Virtual Experience

Elaine Rigoli has a blog posted on ere.net that I came across the other day. This is an excellent article on how your company can better present itself to candidates. It covers virtual/interactive approaches, your career site, internal employee movement and job expectations. This also offers up some very good examples of what companies have running right now.

Read More - The Candidate's Virtual Experience

I do agree with the statement on virtual job fairs being without value unless new information is being introduced to candidates. To defeat this in a real-time interactive way, why not host online Q&A session between candidates and current employees. Let the questions be asked and answered fully. Topics might come up that you never realized held so much interest for your candidates. It offers a learning tool for both your company and your candidates.