If you're trying to fill your staffing ranks, you may be looking for creative, outside-of-the-box ideas for recruiting. Recruiting events can be a relatively easy way to attract lots of applicants, but what matters is whether those people are qualified for the positions. All too often, companies host these events and get hit-or-miss results. In a worst-case scenario, the event may not yield any high-quality candidates, and you're back to square one.
Fortunately, it doesn't have to be like this for your business. By implementing the best recruiting event ideas, you can get top-tier talent to strengthen your company and its bottom line. From virtual recruiting events to in-person hackathons, we've compiled a list of the top six ideas that can benefit your business. So get those resume readers ready - let's start recruiting!
What is a Recruiting Event?
At its core, a recruiting event is designed to attract new hires to your business. However, these events can take on various forms based on the specific goals you're trying to achieve. Some examples of recruiting event goals include:
- New Business Hiring: Perhaps you're opening a new office or retail space, or maybe you're starting a brand new business. In this case, the event is geared toward finding new employees to fill your ranks so you can open on time and be ready to go.
- Entry-Level Event: Some companies have many entry-level positions with a relatively high turnover rate. With this kind of recruiting event, you're trying to get as many applicants as possible to determine which ones will be the best fit for your company. Ideally, some of these candidates will move up the ladder to senior positions over the long term.
- Interview and Test: If you're looking for skilled workers, you must ensure they're qualified for the position. This kind of recruiting fair may have guests play games or engage with your hiring team to filter out the best candidates. From there, you may set up an on-site interview or a meeting at a later date.
Before setting up a new event, you must have clear and quantifiable goals. For example, how many positions are you hoping to fill? How soon would those new employees start their respective jobs? Without these details, it's impossible to know if your event was successful.
6 Best Recruiting Event Ideas
Although the primary goal is to recruit candidates for open job positions, there are many ways to go about it. These six ideas offer various options so you can choose the one that suits your specific needs best. For example, a virtual event is the best bet if you're trying to hire remote workers since you don't have to rely on local talent, consider this checklist when planning your virtual recruiting event. So, without further ado, here are the six best ways to host a recruiting event.
Virtual Information Sessions
We live in an age where employees don't have to be in a physical office to complete their work. All someone needs is a reliable internet connection and a laptop, and he or she can do most jobs without any problems. Obviously, if you're hiring for a customer service or retail position, a virtual hiring event wouldn't make much sense. However, if you can use either in-person or remote workers, this option can be pretty beneficial. Some of the advantages include:
- Recruit From Anywhere: You can get top talent from across the globe, meaning you're not limited to candidates closest to your office.
- Lower Overhead: Hosting a virtual event costs much less than having the same event at a physical venue. However, if you want the best of both worlds, you can host a hybrid recruiting fair.
- Easy Assessments: While you can't ask new hires to complete actual work for you, you can send various online assessments to separate qualified candidates. Posting these tests online is much easier than having people complete them on-site.
Best practice: For a virtual recruitment event, you should have potential applicants register before providing them with a login link. The more steps required to access the event, the easier it is to tell who is both motivated and capable of filling the position. This will allow you to take a first pass at the candidates and filter out those who are either underqualified or a poor match for the open position.
Best practice: As with an in-person hiring event, have your event open for a designated period of time and allow applicants to show up within that time frame, rather than adhere to a set arrival schedule. From there, you can do one-on-one sessions or break everyone into smaller groups.
Hackathons
This recruiting event idea is only suitable for technology companies looking for programmers and developers. A hackathon is a social event where programmers can either collaborate or compete to complete a specific project. These events are typically 24 to 48 hours long.
The primary benefit of hosting a hackathon is that you get to test everyone's skills, both as an individual and as a team player. In addition to technical knowledge, you can see which applicants are best suited for your company culture. For example, perhaps each group is run by someone from your company so they can get firsthand knowledge of each candidate. By the end of the hackathon, it's pretty easy to tell who will thrive.
For the best results, we recommend opening a hackathon to everyone, not necessarily just those with experience. Many coders and developers work on their skills in their personal time, so they may not have a stellar resume. However, as long as the person knows their stuff, a lack of credentials may not be a dealbreaker.
Regardless of your industry, no worker exists in a vacuum. All companies need team players who can work well with other people. Some businesses offer more autonomy than others, but there will always be some form of social interaction.
For those businesses that need social talent as well as basic skills, hosting a gamified recruiting event can yield the best results. Examples of these types of events include:
- Scavenger Hunt : Break applicants into teams and have them find specific items from within a set boundary and timeframe. You can also host this event virtually.
- Escape Room: This option can be a little pricey, so we recommend hosting it for qualified candidates only. For example, perhaps you have a few people who have gone through the first round of interviews, and you need to whittle the group down a bit. To save money, you can also host a virtual escape room with technology from 6Connex.
- Trivia Games: An easy way to tell who knows their stuff is to have customized questions about your industry. Those who score the highest in the game may move on to interviews.
In all cases, you should offer prizes or incentives to attract applicants. Since these games can take time to complete, you want to make it worth their while, even if they don't wind up with a job at the end.
Ask Me Anything Sessions
Ask Me Anything sessions are becoming far more popular these days, particularly for businesses. They allow your brand to engage with an audience and provide details and insight that might not come across in a standard recruiting event. However, when developing an AMA for recruitment, keep these tips in mind:
- Be Ready for Uncomfortable Questions: Since AMAs usually happen online, you're bound to get some trolls. Have a plan for what to do if or when they pop up and be sure to outline any ground rules with all participants. For example, attendees can only ask questions about the position or the business - nothing personal.
- Have a Script, But Be Flexible: If all the responses sound canned, attendees might not be as interested in applying for an open position. AMAs are usually supposed to be "off the cuff," so it's often better to respond without a script. That said, having an outline or notes for specific questions can help you stay on topic.
- Use a Moderator: AMAs work best when someone controls the crowd while someone else answers the questions. Moderators are essential to keep the event moving forward and to avoid sidetracking too much. A moderator can also help remove trolls or unwanted guests.
Career Expos
Sometimes, the best way to attract a large crowd is to offer hiring positions for multiple companies. A career expo brings various companies together to recruit and hire new candidates from multiple industries and talents. Ideally, each participating business won't be looking for the same applicants.
The best part about a career expo is that each company can share the costs of hosting and execution. Typically, one business sponsors the expo and invites other companies to participate. Also, the expo may include businesses from unique industries or brands from within the same field. For example, if you were hosting a food service expo, some companies may hire chefs while others look for food packers or servers.
An expo is also an excellent way to meet and engage with new candidates on-site. While most people may just leave a resume and contact information, motivated applicants will likely try to learn more. Then, you can move those motivated individuals through the hiring pipeline.
Diversity and Inclusion Panels
Diversity is a critical element of any hiring event. However, many minority groups or people of color are often left out of these events. Typically, this exclusion doesn't happen on purpose. Instead, the company may not promote the event in areas where minorities might see it, or they might not offer information in other languages.
As a business, you don't want to limit your talent pool, either by accident or on purpose. Diversity and inclusion panels allow you to expand your outreach and generate some positive buzz for your brand. Since many consumers want to buy from companies that focus on social issues, you can leverage this type of event for marketing purposes as well as for talent acquisition. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Word to the wise: tread softly when hosting these kinds of events and make sure to include people from the minority groups you're trying to attract. Otherwise, you may appear insensitive or disingenuous, and the event could backfire. For example, if you want to use content in another language, get a native speaker to translate your materials.
How to Use 6Connex to Host a Recruiting Event
As we've seen, many recruiting event ideas can work for in-person, hybrid, and virtual. 6Connex makes it easy to build virtual environments to host recruitment fairs of all shapes and sizes. If you're ready to see what a well planned and well executed recruiting event can do for your business, contact us today and request a demo!
