10 Tips to Prepare for Your Virtual Career Fair
Joakim Jönsson
Dec 2, 2024 9:20:00 AM
Launching a virtual career fair for the first time can seem overwhelming at first: it’s a new tool for most recruiters and companies, and there are a lot of decisions to make. Luckily, 6Connex is here with some handy tips to help you prepare your career fair from start to finish!
Online job fairs allow organizations to run elaborate or simple recruiting events with the help of virtual career fair software. The perks? Branded e-environments with lobbies or welcome areas, video greetings from company executives, exhibit halls with booths, rooms where candidates can chat with recruiters to learn more about an organization in real time, and the list goes on.
In-person career fairs have historically been an effective way to attract and pre-screen a large number of potential job candidates all at once. Today, however, two major factors have lessened their efficiency:
1. Knowledge-Based Jobs Don’t Require Physical Presence: Technology and best practices for telecommuting have made the requirement to live and work in the same area less important for knowledge-based jobs than it once was, allowing organizations to seek out qualified candidates globally.
2. Travel is Expensive: Increased time and expense with travel and renting a space to hold a career fair.
But wait, there’s more…
One of the lesser-known benefits of hosting a virtual career fair is the ability to attract hard-to-find “passive” candidates.
Passive candidates are those who fall into one of the following categories:
1. Currently Employed: Candidates who are currently employed and appreciate the ease of a virtual job fair because they don’t need to take time off from work.
2. Prefer Privacy: The kind of employees that prefer privacy and might have concerns about being seen at a physical job fair.
With online job fairs, you can reach potential talent anywhere, any time. So let’s teach you how to run one.
There are many factors to consider when creating the budget for your virtual career fair. Variables such as the event scope, features desired, and the virtual event platform you want to host your event can all affect the amount of money you’ll need to host your career fair. While costs vary depending on these factors, a virtual career fair still ends up being a fraction of the price of a physical fair.
The very first - and possibly most important – decision you’ll make is on which platform you’ll host your career fair. It's important to choose the right virtual event platform to work for you and your organization. Because career fairs can bring in anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of people, you must carefully evaluate the platform to match the needs of your event. There are some platforms out there that offer a simple webpage and chat window, while others offer different booths, halls, chat windows, and a resource center.
There are two general types of virtual career fair software on the market:
1. Simple Webpage: One is a simple webpage with a chat window where attendees can chat with recruiters at a designated time.
2. Elaborate Design: The other is a more robust solution that mimics a physical career fair with branded exhibit halls, booths, webinars, and a resource center.
Budget-conscious organizations that want the basics can go with a chat-only solution. Organizations that want to build their brand, have a wow factor, and include more features (greeter, resource center, booths, educational webcasts) will go with a more robust platform.
Developing an effective strategy that covers the basics and sets goals for your event is crucial to succeeding as a host. Make sure you keep these important points in mind:
Finding the best date(s) possible to host your career fair with a great turnout, planning the content and speakers, and building your list of potential attendees are all important strategic points that must be carefully considered. Be sure to get together with your team at least two months before the career fair goes live to start planning these important details.
Planning content early is important for both potential employees and for your event speakers. Gathering key content and topics can help your speakers develop presentation topics that are right for your fair.
Crucial content for most companies to include during a virtual event include:
Just because your career fair is virtual, doesn’t mean it has to be boring! You can still create an engaging design and theme for the fair that will present your brand to potential employees. By using a virtual event platform like 6Connex to host your career fair, you can easily use pre-built templates to walk users through the virtual recruiting process step-by-step!
A virtual booth gives you the flexibility to creatively showcase your company and attract top talent. From branding and content to design and layout, you can personalize your virtual booth just as you would a traditional one.
No design experience? No worries. Many virtual event platforms offer pre-built templates, eliminating the need for design expertise. These templates simplify the creation of your welcome area, individual booths, and chat boxes, allowing you to focus on delivering an engaging experience.
To make your virtual job fair a success, ensure recruiters and hiring managers are readily available to provide timely, consistent responses. If recruiters encounter repetitive questions, consider creating a messaging guide with standard responses. This ensures uniform communication and saves time during the event.
Modern virtual career fair platforms often include advanced data collection tools. For example, recruiters can use attendee registration data to search for qualified candidates who visited the booth.
The advantage? Recruiters can engage candidates while they’re online, drawing them back to the booth for deeper discussions. This streamlined process helps organizations shorten hiring cycles and quickly fill roles requiring specific skills.
By using a robust virtual event platform like 6Connex, you can seamlessly guide users through the recruiting journey with pre-built templates and intuitive features—ensuring a successful virtual career fair.
As the career fair gets closer, take time to reach out to any event partners, sponsors and/or speakers to educate them on what you need from them, set expectations and ensure you’re all on the same page before the fair gets started.
More than anything, you want your career fair attendees to be able to find knowledgeable recruiters or hiring managers who can help answer their questions at all times during the fair hours. Make sure you have the right amount of staff ready to help your job candidates.
The biggest challenge with hosting a career fair is simply getting attendees to come. Creating an integrated marketing strategy for your virtual event is one of the most effective ways to ensure you reach all your leads and potential attendees in the months prior to hosting the fair. The more diverse the selection of marketing channels used, the better your chances of getting a great turnout at your event.
Once potential candidates have registered, organizations need to set up a regular email drip, social media, and other communications schedule to keep attendees informed, with a final reminder going out the day before.
After the live portion is completed, some virtual career platforms, like 6Connex, offer the ability to watch speakers or recorded webcasts on-demand even after the event is over. These organizations should send out regular reminder emails that the virtual event is still open.
The reminders should include information about useful materials such as:
In the age of social media, it can be tough to keep the attention of possible attendees. Just because someone registered for a career fair a month ago doesn’t ensure that they’ll actually attend, so be sure to send out key reminders through social media, emails, and any other communications you have with potential attendees to make sure your career fair stays top of mind.
Now that you’ve done so much hard work, you can officially launch your career fair! Some virtual career platforms, such as 6Connex, offer the ability to watch speakers or recorded webcasts on-demand even after the event is over, and give access to a resource center with downloadable content from the fair.
Congratulations on hosting your first virtual career fair! Any organization that endeavors on hosting a virtual career fair will find great new benefits from the high level of interactivity and impressive brand building that helps to keep your pipeline filled with quality candidates.
To learn more about how you can host a virtual career fair with 6Connex, visit www.6connex.com.
For more help with setting up your virtual career fair, download our free e-book, How to Design a Virtual Job Fair Program.
Additional Resources:
Checklist: 8 Things to Consider When Planning a Virtual Job Fair
Your Ultimate Guide to Hosting a Virtual Career Fair in 9 Easy Steps
6Connex is the leading provider of in-person, hybrid, and virtual event technology for enterprises worldwide. Our cloud-based product portfolio includes event management tools, in-person event apps, virtual venues, webinars, learning management, and more.
From internal meetings to large scale conferences, we allow you to engage and transform big ideas into real-world results.
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