The YoloWorks! Employment and Business Services is a joint partnership of the Yolo County Workforce Innovation Board, Yolo County Health and Human Services, and the American Job Centers of California (YoloWorks! Career Centers).

They are the premier provider of business and jobseeker services in the Yolo County region of Northern California, which has a population of over 200,000 people and is home to many of the State of California’s departments and offices.

Their aim is to help people find, get, and keep jobs and to help companies hire the skilled workers they need to remain successful and competitive.

The Challenge

Hosting a virtual career fair for 2000+ jobseekers and more than 40 exhibiting employers in just two weeks

With the need to accelerate digitization due to COVID-19, and the realization that virtual events help drive greater inclusivity for jobseekers that spread across a large geographical area, Erica Johnson, HHSA Program Coordinator at YoloWorks!, and her team went on a search for an online platform that would suit their recruiting-specific event needs. 

Drawn by the ease of use, unparalleled interactivity, extensive employer branding, and talent data management features, YoloWorks! chose Talentspace to host their events, starting with the State of California Administrative Pathways Virtual Career Fair.

The first step towards creating a successful online event was onboarding Erica and her team to the platform along with CalHR and Sacramento Employment and Training Agency, which were co-organizers of the event. This was followed by orientations for all the State Department employees who would be attending the event. These were effectively covered by YoloWorks!s dedicated Talentspace Customer Success Manager (CSM), Max, who provided thorough training sessions, and ongoing assistance.

“Talentspace exceeded any expectations that we had for a virtual job fair platform. It provided us the ability to not only host events, but serve as a portal for employers to search job seeker profiles pre and post event. We never expected the system would have all the available features and such a sleek design. The platform was easy to get used to and the customer service provided allowed us to get all of our questions answered in a timely manner as we were learning to navigate the system. We look forward to using the system for future virtual and hybrid events to ensure that we are reaching job seekers in multiple ways.”

—- Erica Johnson, HHSA Program Coordinator at YoloWorks!

Starting on a high note

The fantastic organizational work from Erica and her team, backed by the support from their CSM resulted in the creation of the event in just 2 weeks, with 44 exhibiting employers, and 2000+ registered jobseekers. In fact, after the platform onboarding in the morning, the event was created on Talentspace, and all state departments were invited by the end of the same day. The entire process of event setup was so easy that even before this event started, YoloWorks! had already set up the next event scheduled to happen 3 weeks later!

To promote the event, the California State Virtual Career Fair was featured on the local television station Good Day Sacramento and Univision, which certainly contributed to the amazing event turnout! Check out the video below.

The Event

An event built from flexible formats

Due to the flexibility of Talentspace to host events from small to large, organizers can mix and match the different interaction formats (live booths, 1-1 chats, speeches, and sessions) to create a custom schedule that can power a variety of events. In this case, YoloWorks! chose to have two consecutive speeches and to run 44 live booths simultaneously. 

2 prep sessions + 44 department live booths = perfect setup 

The speeches were informative seminars titled “How to Begin Your State Career Seminar”, which covered topics such as interview preparation and the hiring process for the State of California. These are meant to empower jobseekers with the recruiting knowledge that would help them succeed in the state application process.

The live booths were hosted by a broad and eclectic range of departments, from the California Secretary of State, California Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of Justice. The drop-in program format enabled the opportunity for department employees and jobseekers to more personally engaging and connect through video.  

The Outcome

The engagement doesn’t end here

Even after the event is over, attending state departments still have full access to the talent database. This meant they could search and filter through exportable profiles of the 2,000+ participants who signed up for the event, which contain insightful information including their resume, desired employment type, current university, interested areas and industries, desired office environments, and more.  

Measuring what counts with event analytics

Moreover, Talentspace provides an auto-generated post-event analytics report, which shows quantitative data such as how many jobseekers attended which live booth or speeches, and for how long. Case managers were able to see what specific individuals actually did and who they connected with at the event, allowing them to better tailor their guidance and support. Overall, these numbers were immensely helpful for organizers at YoloWorks! to understand and measure event engagement on a meaningful level. 

Looking ahead

Thanks to Talentspace, Yolo County is now able to host more frequent and catered job events, ranging from career fairs to targeted hiring information sessions, ultimately facilitating deeper employer-job seeker connections on a larger scale.