The Healthcare Job Fair made headlines in September with its record-setting debut in Canada, welcoming professionals from all over the healthcare, support work and allied health industries to meet face-to-face with the world’s leading health employers in Toronto, Ontario.

Almost 800 candidates including more than 250 nurses as well as physicians, support workers and other healthcare professionals attended the job fair, against the backdrop of acute staffing shortages plaguing health systems the world over.

Tackling Health Worker Shortages

Canada in particular is witnessing an unprecedented healthcare staffing crisis, with over 150,000 health sector vacancies across its health services.

Accordingly, the Healthcare Job Fair in Toronto saw more candidate registrations at the time than any other Healthcare Job Fair anywhere in the world. With over 40 employers hailing from seven of Canada’s provinces and territories, the event represented an unrivalled opportunity for health sector organisations to help fill the gaps in their rosters.

Among them were leading Canadian hospitals and health centres such as the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), North York General Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; provincial governments and health authorities like the Government of New Brunswick and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador; as well as other employers like Chartwell Retirement Residences and Shoppers Drug Mart.

Record-Breaking Demand

The fair’s hours had to be extended to facilitate the high demand from healthcare professionals and recruiters alike, and was even forced to turn some hopeful recruiters away once the venue reached peak capacity.

Healthcare organisations benefit at job fairs such as these from the massive appetite for travel and exploration shared by many young workers following the years spent locked down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re so young,” a nurse attending the event alongside a friend in hopes of finding their next postings observed to the CBC. “Like, we’re only 20. And so, it’s like, we have no commitments to this area. So it’s like, why not take the opportunity, and kind of go venture out?”

CBC Saturday News, September 17, 2022. CBC News

Employers exhibiting at the job fair praised the high quality of the attendees.

“The quality of the candidates today has been really good,” Angela Firestone, a Talent Acquisitions Specialist with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, remarked at the event. “We’ve had people from pharmacists, to RNs, to people looking for more sorts of administrative roles.”

Brian Ferris, a Workforce Consultant with the Government of New Brunswick, also noted the wide variety of healthcare specialists that attended the job fair.

“We’ve been speaking to everyone from dentists to doctors, to LPNs, to PSWs. Everything that we’re looking for, we’ve been finding here.”

Specially designated interview rooms allowed employers to hold interviews with promising candidates on the spot, with many making job offers directly to attendees on the day. Others were able to schedule candidate interviews for the weeks immediately following the event.

Returning in 2023

Fresh off the runaway success of the Toronto event, the Healthcare Job Fair plans on making a return to Canada in the New Year.

Its February 25th event in Calgary, Alberta will give healthcare providers across Canada another opportunity to benefit from a live and in-person recruitment event that has already allowed health services across seven provinces the chance to refresh their talent pools and tackle their staffing needs head-on.

With healthcare systems stretched to breaking point by the pandemic, rapid mass recruitment has never been more critical to meeting healthcare organisations’ staffing needs.

Book your place at the Calgary Healthcare Job Fair while there’s still exhibition floor space available! For the wider range of globetrotting Healthcare Job Fairs coming up in 2023, and for details on how you can book your spot, click here.