The main advantages of DYPA’s Career Days are the broad promotion of jobs and the targeted attraction of interested parties in a process that has the characteristics of simultaneous, flexible and direct interpersonal contact. For the first time, business representatives communicate directly with job seekers, at no cost and with mutual benefit. Moreover, through the reformed Career Days, DYPA’s executive staff have been oriented towards a different mentality and a different way of work, exhibiting extroversion and flexibility. Moreover, DYPA evolved from having procedures that were rigid and bureaucratic to adopting simple, user-friendly, and effective practices.

The reformed Career Days is an ongoing project. DYPA’s executive staff is activated for holding each event. The organisation is handled by a coordination group within DYPA’s Central Administration, while DYPA Counselors reach out to the business world and inform potential jobseekers and other stakeholders at a nationwide level. At the same time, various communication and promotion tools are used. After the end of each event, an evaluation questionnaire is sent to the companies that participated. The questionnaire includes 4 topics: event evaluation, CV evaluation, positive/negative comments, number of interviews and recruitments. Due to the success of the reformed Career Days, events are organized on a regular basis. They have already been carried out in all the big cities of Greece and also in cities that exhibit commercial interest. Career Days events are expected to be repeated in the same location at regular intervals.

A big number of DYPA staff work in the planning and implementation of the Career Days institution, including staff from Central Administration and staff at regional and local level, e.g. Counselors of DYPA’s local Employment Promotion Centres are mobilised for business outreach and provision of information to the public regarding the events.

Beneficiaries are the unemployed who seek jobs readily available, jobseekers looking for new employment opportunities, companies interested in filling vacant positions immediately, and companies interested in evaluating candidates for filling vacant positions that will arise in the near future. Unlike similar events organised by agencies of the private sector, participation in DYPA’s Career Days events does not involve any cost for unemployed people, other jobseekers, and companies.

Τo date, both qualitative and quantitative results suggest success in meeting the objectives, these results are described below:

• More than 300 companies participated.
• More than 8000 jobs were offered (all educational levels of experience and expertise)
• More than 7000 prospective job seekers attended.
• The organisation of Career Days events has been evaluated as “excellent” by more than 90% of the participants.
• Confirmed recruitment data lead to the conclusion that within just 20 days after each event, more than 50 jobseekers are recruited, and at average at least 15-20% of the jobs that are actually offered are covered. These figures increase significantly after this period of time, as pools of resumes/Cvs are put to use, more jobseekers than thouse recruited are attracted as a result of good practices dissemination, and ties are developed between the business world, jobseekers and other bodies at local level.

The main challenge was to encounter and reverse the mistrust of employers and jobseekers, given that until now the Public Employment Service had been identified in the public's consciousness as an organisation with passive policies and provision of social subsidies. The impeccable organisation, efficiency and frequency of the reformed Career Days events have contributed to the positive evaluation and establishment of DYPA’s Career Days in the consciousness of the business world and the public.

Conditions for success in innovations like reformed DYPA’s Career Days are the following:

• Τhe strong commitment of PES leadership to engage in innovative reforms in accordance with the Strategic Planning of the Public Employment Service and the general priority of digitalisation at the level of Government Agenda
• The more than due dedication and display of zeal exhibited by Public Employment Service employees who work for Career Days events.
• The change of mentality that involves a more modern, extrovert and flexible way of work within the Public Employment Service.
• The transition from the rigid bureaucratic procedures of DYPA to simple, user-friendly and effective practices.
• The fact that it provides immediate, fast and flexible coupling and matching of labour supply with demand, as company representatives can see hundreds of candidates with resumes/CVs and specialisations relevant to the jobs offered.

Similar innovation practices exist in Greece and abroad, however, in Greece they were mainly implemented by private Employment Agencies. Within DYPA’s Strategic Framework for Innovation, dissemination and further development actions of DYPA’s innovative reforms are going to be included aiming at the transfer and capitalization of “lessons learned” and knowledge gained.

In terms of internal lessons learned, after holding Career Days events in 9 different cities during a little more than a year, DYPA’s entire executive staff has been oriented towards a different mindset and way of work, which is more modern, extrovert and flexible. In terms of lessons learned related to the PES mission, the effectiveness of such events, bringing together employers and jobseekers should be mentioned. It is important to integrate innovation and reform into the strategic planning of the organization that develops innovative services.