What is the biggest challenge small businesses face? There are a couple of answers that may spring to mind but, for most, the attraction and retention of skilled candidates is right up there.

In a hyper competitive, highly saturated business world, attracting the right sort of people to your business comes attached with a huge weight of responsibility and resources. The modern recruitment market is fast-paced, unforgiving and pricey, and some SME and start up owners may simply not have the knowledge or capital to keep up with modern recruiting processes.

So, how do you get around this? Enter the job fair, a rather old-fashioned concept that still has a place in amongst our social media driven world. Set up a nicely dressed table with some freebies to hand out and you’ll have the chance to meet hundreds, even thousands, of potential candidates through the day – which offers plenty of potential benefit.

Here’s how attending a job fair can help you.

Gain exposure to more of the right sort of people

One of the biggest issues in recruitment processes is finding candidates that are not only suitable to your business, but also interested in it as well. A job fair gives you exposure to the sort of people you want to meet, en masse. Furthermore, it allows you face-to-face interaction with each potential candidate – a priceless commodity that goes well beyond the value of seeing someone’s CV.

In retail, there is the concept of green, amber and red customers, where green shoppers walk into the shop ready to buy, amber semi-interested and red simply having a casual browse. Think of job fair attendees as green and amber candidates, eager and ready to find out more about your business.

Save big on time and money

The sort of exposure mentioned above offers a potential solution to the biggest problem in the recruiting process- that being a drain on time and financial resources. A recruitment process done yourself tends to be drawn out and lacking in visibility of the market, whilst one done through an agency will come at a significant cost. This puts you at risk of either not finding the right person or ploughing money you don’t have into securing a good candidate.

Even in the brief, few minute windows you’re permitted speaking to would-be candidates, you’re able to develop a much more effective shortlisting process than simply flicking through CVs. Establishing a connection with candidates ahead of first interview is sure to streamline your hiring process as well as boosting your chances of finding the right person.

Scout out future talent and raise brand awareness

Many job fairs are college and university hosted, set up for students to get a taste for what could possibly lie ahead. Any businessman knows there’s never a bad time to build your network, and meeting students ahead of them entering into the job market allows you a chance to get a step ahead of your competition.

It might just be a casual conversation right now, but attending student job fairs gives you the opportunity to make an impression on future talent, which could pay dividends in the future.

Raise your brand awareness

Job fairs allow you to get your name out there in an effective and direct manner. By attending and putting on a show, you’ll be boosting brand awareness to your target audience, which sets a foundation for results in recruiting.

If you want to step things up a notch, you can even look to host your own job fair and be the headline act. Businesses can utilise temporary buildings or rent a space to host these sorts of events, meaning you can craft the structure of the day to fit your agenda best.

They say: “any press is good press” but boosting your brand via a job fair is most definitely the right kind.

With smaller business owners feeling the pressure of the recruiter market and finding the right people for their business, it makes sense that you should be doing everything in your power to ensure you’re building your business around the right people. So, when it comes to furthering your brand, don’t forget the humble job fair- which still has plenty to offer in business today.