- A private job fair is being held for the 900 Better.com employees fired last week over Zoom.
- Recruiters from Microsoft and Robinhood will attend the event, one organizer told Insider.
- "900 people on the market that are well-respected and well-trained … for them it's a dream," she said.
One of the Better.com employees fired in a now-infamous Zoom call is working with local groups to set up a career fair for the hundreds of fellow employees laid off by the digital-mortgage company.
Recruiters from Microsoft and Robinhood are set to attend the event, which is sponsored by the City of Charlotte & the NCWorks Career Center.
Better.com CEO Vishal Garg told 900 employees in a three-minute call on December 1 they were being laid off, "effective immediately."
Laid-off staff said that the firings were unexpected and that they were cut off from their work devices almost immediately. Since announcing the mass layoffs, Better's top marketing, PR, and communications executives have resigned, Insider reported.
Organizing a job fair for the affected Better.com employees was a "no brainer," according to Demi Knight Clark, former regional director at Better.com and one of the event leads. "We've got companies that we're working with that are desperately looking for top talent like this."
"You have to understand, right now in the job market ... you don't really have 900 people that are plug and play to be able to go to work," she added.
As The Great Resignation and national labor shortage continue to cause hiring challenges across the nation, having hundreds of well-trained tech employees available for immediate work is a "dream" for employers, she said. Many of the fired staffers are scrambling for jobs ahead of the holidays, as Insider previously reported.
Allstate, Intercontinental Capital Group, Microsoft, and Robinhood have confirmed they will each have recruiters attending the private job fair, a spokesperson from the City of Charlotte told Insider.
"Charlotte has a collaborative business community, so it is no surprise that several of our top employers have stepped up to consider these talented displaced employees for their organizations," a spokesperson for the City of Charlotte told Insider in a statement. "This rapid response hiring event is a testament to our community wanting to keep these employees and the value they bring through their knowledge, skills, and abilities in Charlotte and contributing to our overall economic success."
Do you work at Better? Do you have a story to share about working there or insight into its layoffs? Contact reporter Alex Nicoll via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-4772 using a non-work phone, email at [email protected], or Twitter DM at @AlexONicoll.