Virtual Recruitment Fairs

"THE recruitment fair seems to have gone the way of the dodo, the zeppelin and the space hopper. Its moment seems to have passed," so says The Times on March 16th quoting BT among others who mourn its passing.

"....virtual fairs are steadily gaining ground," says The Times. "The London Business School now teams up with eight of the world’s other leading business schools for an annual two-day internet recruitment extravaganza where 44 recruiters meet more than 1,400 MBA students seeking summer internships and permanent posts."

Meanwhile the virtual assistant is growing in popularity indicating that in future the virtual may be the job choice. The first virtual assistant's fair is due up soon.

"Virtual Assistance, while still mostly unheard of by the general population, is an entrepreneurial career choice not only alive and well, but growing rapidly all over the world. Many of the industry’s leaders, who work tirelessly to increase awareness and educate small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) on the benefits of collaborating with Virtual Assistants (VAs), will meet in Toronto Canada May 2-4 of this year at the Forum on Virtual Assistance (FoVA). FoVA will be the first event of its kind ever to take place in Canada. "

That's due May 2.

The Event

Not strictly speaking a virtual event but the Virtul Worlds Conference. Less than a month away now. Here is the speaker list.

Those of us in the virtual worlds business have sensed the four or five months from November on have been very quiet - a factor many of us attributed to negative press for Second Life

Virtual management though are reporting significant investment during the last quarrter of 2007. ".... venture capital and media firms have invested more than $425 million dollars in 15 virtual worlds companies during the fourth quarter of 2007. Of the $425 million, $375 Million was invested in 13 companies and the remaining $50 million consisted of two acquisitions.

Fourth quarter numbers are up from $220 million having been invested in 23 virtual worlds-related companies in Q3 2007. In the third quarter Disney also announced its $700 million acquisition of Club Penguin. No comparable data is available for Q4 2006.

Investors during the Q4 2007 period include: Omnicom, Alloy Ventures and Storm Ventures, Vickers Financial Group, DHX Media Ltd., Benchmark Capital, Canaan Partners, GrandBanks Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Ventures, Providence Equity Partners, Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners and Pequot Ventures, Gigamedia, Sony and Time Warner, Microsoft and BigFish Games."

The bulk of the money seems to be going into worlds targeting younger people and kids, soperhaps a reflection of SL's poor Autumn on that front.

RSS Hugger

We're in the process of signing up to rsshugger, the new feed registry. Rsshugger is run by Colin over at mixedmarketarts.com. It's our way of ensuring you can learn more about virtual events via the Rss feed.

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