How to set up a virtual career fair worth attending
Virtual career fairs enable organizations to reach candidates en masse and connect with the industry’s best talents within a short time window.
As talent recruitment has evolved significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, so have career fairs. Just as interviews are conducted remotely and remote jobs are becoming prevalent, career fairs have turned to a virtual format.
Alongside being the safer choice given the current health situation, virtual career fairs have comparative advantages.
They are not restricted to geographical regions and to people´s ability to travel to physically be at the fair. Instead of a local talent pool, they reach a pool that is more diverse, global, and bigger in size.
Furthermore, thanks to the advances in technology and the cutting-edge virtual events platforms available at a click away, virtual career fairs can be as engaging as their in-person counterparts.
Therefore, we have developed a set of recommendations to guide you through to process of building a virtual career fair worth attending and delivering ROI to your organization.
Set your strategic goals and objectives
At the outset, you should set your event´s strategic objectives and specific goals. What are you looking to achieve by organizing your virtual career fair? This will guide your future decisions on the content you offer and the virtual platform you chose.
So, set overarching objectives: is it boosting your awareness among talent in the industry? Is it setting up job interviews? Is it strengthening relationships with brands or recruiting agencies?
Similarly, ask yourself what is the scope of the job fair: national or global? industry-specific or spanning various sectors? Junior level or senior level?
Finally, set specific KPI connected to those overarching objectives (number of registrations/attendees, average viewing times, tickets sold, etc).
Chose a virtual career fair platform
An in-person career fair is not a seminar, so a virtual career fair should not be treated as a webinar. To host a truly engaging virtual career fair, you need a robust virtual events platform.
Indeed, you have to go beyond a webinar-type platform to integrate key features and offer a top-quality experience.
Powered by virtual event platforms, virtual career fairs can feature a myriad of features such as networking lobbies, chat rooms, or branded exhibitor booths.
Therefore, we´ll take a look at the most important features that will make your virtual career fair stand out.
Virtual exhibitor booths
Like traditional fairs, virtual career fairs can feature exhibitors’ booths where attendees obtain company information and interact with employers’ staff.
Setting up colorful booths can bring a brand identity to life and bring the company´s unique offerings to the fore.
Each company recruiting at the event will have its distinct branding and visual identity, so providing fully customizable booths is a must.
Importantly, a useful feature to look out for in virtual booths is the ability to embed downloadable files. In these, the recruiting company can pack useful information for candidates, such as the list of open positions, the company benefits, and the office locations.
Added to that, in-session ads at exhibitor booths can be a differentiator, leading candidates to the company´s career website seamlessly.
If you are recruiting yourself, take the opportunity to be creative on the content you relay and the way you interact with attendees. So, consider what you can deliver as a “wow” moment, convincing booth visitors that you are the company worth working for.
Enhanced networking opportunities
Above any other type of event, career fairs are all about networking. If you don´t enable and encourage networking opportunities actively, your career fair will certainly fail.
To promote networking, think about enabling rich registration forms and landing pages. These will be useful for both the attendees and the recruiters in connecting with the right people.
For instance, consider asking for qualifications, specific skills, or areas of interest. This information will enable recruiters to find the most suitable people according to their open positions.
Alongside that, embedding social media profiles and contact information within your event platform can effectively promote connections.
Crucially, look for platforms integrating one-to-one private chat, video conferencing, and scheduled meetings. These will facilitate interactions without leaving the event environment and elevate the experience entirely, leaving both attendees and recruiters satisfied.
Analytics & Post-Event Reporting
Whether your company is recruiting, or your event´s exhibitors are doing so, you will certainly want to analyze how your event fared. In this respect, virtual career fairs are ideal, as you can measure every interaction.
Therefore, look for virtual events platform offering detailed analytics, measuring interactions (comments, polls responses), engagement time (average viewing time per session, average unique views per session), and networking (messages exchanged, web of connections).
Additionally, as this data is often presented in intuitive graphs, it can help you in post-event reporting, demonstrating the event ROI to company executives and evaluating what type of content performed best among the audience.
Conclusion
In summary, virtual career fairs have a long-term future since they possess competitive advantages. Before hosting one, make sure to set the strategic objectives that will guide your decisions. Chose a virtual event platform offering key features such as customizable booths, networking, and analytics.
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[hubspot portal=”5958648″ id=”de0c0cbb-e144-4596-8bde-5ca391770991″ type=”form”]About the Author / Gabriel Marin
