As the world has changed in 2020, the percentage of virtual events has spiked up suddenly. Today, the virtual has become the new normal. Hosting virtual meetings and conferences have become an integral part of every industry. Right from hosting recurring meetings, conferences, trade shows, exhibitions, expos, AGMs, town halls, virtual career fair etc. are transformed into a visually rich virtual environment. Last but not least jobs and career fairs are converted into a digital environment. Nowadays, virtual job fairs have become an integral part of the recruiting industry to seek top talents.
As per the government guidelines, social distancing protocols have been circulated around the nations. It resulted in a complete stop to live physical events and fairs. The merits served by virtual career fairs are beyond the reach of in-person fairs. Increased attendance, better visibility, reduced carbon footprints & expenses, increased ROI, etc. are some of the benefits offered by virtual fairs. Organisations globally are tapping into the most powerful tool to connect, network, and keep their pipelines filled with quality candidates. Virtual career fairs escalate the need for paperwork. All you need is a virtual event set up that offers opportunities beyond the geographical restrictions. However, virtual career fairs became immensely popular during the recent times of the global pandemic. It won’t be wrong to say, it is here to stay for long and is the next big thing for the recruiting industry.
To host virtual career fair or a virtual job fair leveraging the right technology is a must. Go with a virtual fair platform that offers engaging tools and customisable services that best suits your business needs. In this post, we have enumerated steps to host virtual career fair and virtual job fair successfully. To know more, read on:
What are Virtual Career Or Virtual Job Fairs?
Virtual career fairs or virtual job fairs are the next big thing in the recruiting industry. Today, virtual fairs have become the first choice of top leading industries to keep their recruiting funnel functioning. It enables employers to connect with potential future employees virtually without compromising on the candidate quality and recruiting targets.
Virtual job fairs and virtual career fairs enable organisations to tap the top talent globally suiting the open job positions. Virtual fairs have broken all the shackles such as space limitations or geographical constraints faced during conventional job fairs. As virtual fairs have skyrocketed in 2020, a sudden surge in the demand for virtual fair platforms has been witnessed. Today, the market is full of virtual fair platform service providers that offer interactive and engaging tools along with customisable packages. To gain a substantial return on investment and benefit from other virtual fairs, hosting a successful virtual job fair on a comprehensive virtual fair platform is a must. Moreover, virtual fairs have paved a way for various opportunities right from online networking to brand visibility across the globe. Indefinitely, it is here to stay for long even post-pandemic.
Steps to Host a Successful Virtual Career Fair & Virtual Job Fair
Planning to host a virtual career fair to keep the recruiting funnels active? Keep in mind the success of the event entirely depends on the well-planned strategy and seamless execution. Leveraging the right technology that offers engaging features is a must. It ensures high-tech video content and a seamless recruitment process along with free-flowing interactions and measurable performance metrics. Let’s quickly have a look at easy-to-follow steps to host a successful virtual career fair or job fair.
#1. Set your virtual career fair or job fair goal
Determine the goals and objectives for your virtual fair and what you want to achieve out of it. You are sure to achieve success out of virtual fair if you have set goals and know what to target. Before making any virtual career fair strategy, answer the following questions to yourself:
- Are you planning to organize and host virtual career fair for boosting the online presence of your organisation or are there any specific job openings?
- Who should attend your virtual career fair and will it be gated or free?
- Whether you just want to interview potential future employees or just organising a virtual fair for sharing corporate content?
- How many attendees are expected to attend an event?
- What kind of information do you need to gather from job seekers at the time of registrations or before interview sessions?
- What questions to be asked during interviews? and so on.
In short, writing down the specific goals of what you want to achieve out of a virtual career fair helps in creating an effective strategy. However, resulting in measuring the performance of the event.
#2. Leverage the right technology
Selecting the right virtual fair platform is a must to host a successful virtual job fair or career fair. Go with a platform that offers 3d virtual event set up with customisable booths, interactive features such as live chat capabilities, engaging tools, and robust data tracking measures. It enables you to connect with your virtual jobseekers seamlessly in real-time. In short, a right event technology offers great networking potential.
#3. Outline a budget for your virtual job fair or career fair
Creating a budget is a must whatsoever is the format of the event. Consider various variables such as no. of attendees & sessions you want to host, features required while creating a budget.
#4. Create an effective virtual fair strategy
Create an effective virtual event strategy while keeping your event goals in mind to ensure success. Research for the dates for hosting a virtual career fair that ensures maximum attendance and turnouts.
#5. Customise virtual booths
Customise your virtual booths suiting your brand image. Select a comprehensive virtual career fair platform that offers customisable services. Virtual careers booths can be customised in the same way as traditional booths. It enables you to get creative in displaying your information to attract potential attendees. Various virtual fair platforms even offer pre-designed templates for welcome, booths, and so on.
#6. Staff your virtual career fair
Ensure that your virtual career fair has the right amount of knowledgeable staff such as recruiters and hiring managers. Staffing knowledgeable recruiters enable attendees to ask questions during virtual fair hours.
#7. Create a pre-event marketing plan
Once you have set your event goals, start creating a pre-event marketing plan to promote your virtual fair. Promotion is the key to ensure success for any event. No matter how good and informative your event is, it is of no use until potential attendees are not aware. Gain an understanding of your potential audience and reach them out. Promote your event via direct marketing, public relations, and by leveraging social media channels. Ensure your potential attendees participate in your quizzes on social media platforms. Additionally, you can even promote your virtual career fair on the website’s landing page. It enables attendees to gain information about the event and register seamlessly.
#8. Keep application process simple
Long and heavy application forms during virtual fairs do not hold the attendee’s interest. They switch off the device as soon as they tuned-in. To keep them engaged with the event keep the forms short. Additionally, you can offer them quick links.
#9. Keep your virtual fair backed by 24*7 customer and tech support
Virtual fairs may result in having unexpected technical glitches at the last movement. Keep your event backed by 24*7 customer and tech support. It helps in keeping your attendees engaged with the content without dividing their attention.
#10. Follow-up your virtual attendees
Once your event gets over, do not forget to follow up with the attendees who have yet not applied to the jobs and are a potential match. Utilise the information gathered at the virtual fair to reach potential candidates.
Final Word
If you have not yet thought about hosting a virtual job fair or virtual career fair now is the time to think about it. The virtual fair opens a gateway for both organisations and job seekers. It enables organisations to keep their candidate pipeline filled with quality candidates. Whereas a job seeker can have a discussion on open job positions virtually from respective remote locations.
