Accra, July 15, GNA - The first online job fair aimed at bringing prospective qualified professionals face-to-face with top employers on career opportunities opened in Accra on Saturday with job seekers expressing optimism of possible recruitment through the process.

The event, put together by S-urge Consulting Group and Zebrajobs.com, Africa's leading job fair organiser, is bringing 400 job seekers of diverse professional backgrounds to exploit opportunities through the alternative job recruitment method.

About 20 companies, including Newmont, Nestle, Coca-Cola and Kasapreko, are participating in the day's fair seeking to fill their vacant positions.

The process involved each prospective job seekers meeting with officials of the company of his or her choice on the vacancies advertised.

Ms Rahel Getachew, Regional Representative of Zebrajobs.com for ECOWAS countries, said job fairs offered a cost effective and time saving way to contact a large number of candidates under one roof. Besides, it will allow companies to collect numerous CVs for their database as well as unlimited accessibility of zebrajobs.com, a state-of-the-art online recruitment, for two months.

"Similarly job fairs are also venues that can present immense benefits to job seekers. In addition it provides an invaluable interviewing experience to job seekers. Job Fairs are excellent places to learn, network, and obtain a job," Ms Getachew said. Mrs Julia Kujar, General Manager of S-urge, said the fair endorsed by the Ministry of Manpower and Employment, had brought together prominent companies to participate in the ground-breaking event to widen the net for Ghanaian job seekers to find the type of employment they wanted easily.

She said a virtual job fair was to be launched soon to allow job seekers anywhere in the world to access vacancies online while there were plans to make the job fair an annual event. Participating companies in the maiden fair would receive certificates at the end of the fair.