Monster.co.uk has injected some much-needed positivity into the task of job hunting in the recession by holding career fairs across the country. The fairs, which have so far taken place in Birmingham and London, get hundreds of employers with current vacancies and thousands of job seekers together, face to face, to engage and discover if they are a good match.

As Julian Acquari, Managing Director of Monster.co.uk explained: “We’ve seen people suffer financial hardship over the past couple of years. We had a desire to give something back – help people find work but also help people improve their career prospects. In the UK, 20 percent of British workers are considering changing careers. For people  who have recently been made redundant this rises to 68 percent, which is a very high figure. People are looking for better pay and job security.”

It’s an essential criterion for attendance at the fairs that employers have live vacancies waiting to be filled. Some of the organisations represented so far have had hundreds of jobs available in a wide range of areas. There’s more good news for employers attending, with the age and levels of experience of job seekers similarily varied. Thousands of people attended the first two fairs and there’s high hope for the next ones which will take place in Glasgow (16 September) and Manchester (21 September).

With seminars to give advice to job-hunters and employers looking for new talent the fairs promise real opportunity for employers. So far the reaction has been extremely positive, with job seekers applying for roles on the spot and the employers attending have been extremely impressed with the calibre of the potentials who have attended. Organisations include IBM, Siemens, The Royal Marines, Royal Mail, Jobcentre Plus among others, with a wide range of jobs from sales to buying to management.

Julian’s advice to job seekers is to bear in mind that the market is much more competitive than it was two years ago, and having observed first-hand the suffering of those desperate to get back to work or move into different sectors, he said: “Being able to help some of those people was rewarding.” Julian added: “There are still good quality jobs available. There’s a lot of people out of work who want to work, and a lot of people in work who want to do different work.”

Employers, meanwhile, should take advantage of the tools available to them online. He said: “On Monster it’s now a much easier and more targeted approach. Employers should make sure they use all the tools and technology available – the candidates are out there.”