Traditional events are being overshadowed by the rise in online events hosted at virtual event platforms. We are still in awe of how hosting virtual hiring is the new trend in the business world. Many organizations are now using virtual events as a means to attract top global talent. Similarly, fresh graduates and job seekers are attracted to interact with recruiters or employers at a virtual career fair platform. Since everything is happening over the internet, the employees can easily connect and chat with the hiring managers. It allows applicants to establish connections and gather information about the company they are to join. On the contrary, employers can connect with candidates with sparkling resumes.
Wondering how does a virtual career fair work? Let us discuss some important factors involved in the hosting of a virtual career fair. Organizations are taking advantage of virtual career events to find the best candidates for vacant positions at their companies. Be it remote hiring or headhunting, an online event allows employers to shortlist candidates by examining resumes and later interviewing the most qualified applicants.
What is a Virtual Career Fair?
To put it straight, virtual career fairs are the replication of physical-in-person career fairs. Here, employers display the employment opportunities for potential candidates attending the virtual event. These events are highly exclusive depending on the features a virtual platform offers. It includes integrated resume search, audio/video meetings, 1:1 chats or group chats, exhibition booths, and 3D designs. Important aspects of hirings are shared through interactive webinars accompanied by Q/A sessions. In short, attendees receive a unique virtual experience.
Although it all comes down to the distinctive environment created by the companies customizing their virtual career fair, an events platform also allows streamlining communication and branding using job listings, custom graphics, social media, content, and personalized avatars. Additionally, the entire hiring process is being executed, from resume collection, and interviewing to finally hiring the best candidates. Lastly, the efficient network, engagement, event reporting, and virtual environment provide a great experience to the hiring industries.
How to Host a Virtual Career Fair?
In order to host a successful virtual career fair, organizations need to get on board with an online events platform. When an event is organized, it welcomes applicants and prospective hires from around the world. Attendees join the event from the comfort of their homes and participate as if they are all present at one location. The first step is to register at the landing page and create a profile to participate in the career fair. Then, with the submission of the resumes, candidates can enjoy the event just by connecting through the Internet from a laptop or personal mobile device.
Here, candidates can sift through exhibitor booths, lobbies, or job boards and apply for their most desired position. In addition, through an events platform, you can arrange for on-demand webinars, seminars, Q/A sessions, and speeches of keynote speakers. Thus, a virtual career fair provides the best staffing solutions without sacrificing talent quality.
Benefits of Virtual Career Fairs for Employers
Virtual career fairs come with an array of benefits for employers or hiring managers. It connects job seekers with employers from around the globe, denying time constraints.
A Cost-Effective Solution
Employers benefit most from a virtual career fair as the expense of traveling, venue, accommodations, food, and transportation is eliminated. Companies can host attendees from around the world at one time without having attendees travel to the event venue. Isn’t it great to organize the event almost entirely from virtual events software? You can easily get keynote speakers to join from anywhere in the world at a scheduled time.
Global Pool of Candidates
Physical events restrict us from hosting regional candidates; however, companies can receive a global pool of applicants with a virtual events platform. In addition, when applicants from diverse backgrounds and talent sets are attracted to an online career fair, a candidate pipeline is formed. Consequently, employers can recruit quickly.
Flexible and Highly Customizable
A custom-built virtual environment for job seekers works best in favor of the company. Complete company culture is portrayed using custom 3D designs, animated avatars, lobbies, and exhibition booths. These innovative features enhance networking and engagement for employers and applicants: schedule live polling, webinars, or Q/A sessions for each of your virtual career fairs.
Real-time Analytics Report
When an online event welcomes registrations from different parts of the world, it also provides hosts with the exact track of the registrations, attendee activities, and overall progress. Organizers can receive analytics reports of ROIs to measure the success of their events. Additionally, these reports will help streamline the procedures of your next online career fair.
Increased Hiring
A physical event hosts a lesser number of candidates and likewise hires employers from the available pool of talent. However, in a virtual career fair, efficient resume searches are employed to hunt the most qualified candidates out of hundreds of applications. In addition, employers can hire more candidates with a career fair targeting global candidates.
The Immersive Features of a Virtual Career Fair
There are numerous features of a virtual career fair that make the event unique for the candidates and employers. In today’s competitive world, organizations resort to virtual career fairs capable of interacting and engaging prospective employees and providing real-time analytics.
Be it a veteran’s virtual career fair or the hunting of fresh applicants; a virtual platform offers features that leave a lasting impression on attendees. Companies can meet their goals by creating a user-friendly environment for global applicants.
Personalized Landing Page
At a virtual career fair, companies design a customized landing page to welcome attendees from far ends of the world. As a result, audiences can easily register, craft profiles, and submit resumes before exploring the event. Moreover, this particular page briefs attendees about the scheduled webinars, seminars, or job hunt advice focusing on job matching algorithms.
Customizable Booths
Custom design the exhibition booths with animated avatars to give off the impression of a physical event. Company representatives are present at each booth to inform and guide the attendees about the event. Further, the chat options or audio/video meeting schedulers enhance the purpose of a virtual career expo.
Dynamic Webinars
Immersive webinars are formulated to display the company’s brand culture by keynote speakers, speeches from industry experts, and global guest speakers. In addition, there may be live, semi-live, or pre-recorded webinars arranged, enhancing the user experience of attendees.
Efficient Networking
Job seekers can easily network with employers and hiring managers at custom exhibit booths through 1:1 chat or audio/ video conferencing. Group chats have also proved to be adequate to engage in open discussion and discourse. Here, applicants make valuable connections with employers, and the process also helps with shortlisting candidates for different roles.
Information Desks
Information desks are also installed at the virtual event, with expert technicians helping guests easily move about the event. Attendees can get quick responses to their questions at these help desks.
Organizations choose virtual events platforms to host their online career fairs following the set of business goals. Throughout event planning and execution, it’s important to make sure everything runs smoothly. On the other hand, the promotion of the event via social media and websites is crucial to its success. The more your event is promoted, the more chances there are for you to host a large number of candidates.
Tips to Organize a Virtual Career fair
Setting up a big career fair on an online events platform can be a tricky business for freshers. However, a virtual events platform eases the process for you. Nevertheless, it is a complex operation that demands careful planning and execution throughout. Therefore, it is necessary to learn about the steps which would help make your event successful. For that matter, check out the following tips on organizing a virtual career fair.
Identify Your Business Goals
To ensure the success of your event, set fair and achievable goals. Once you clearly understand your event objectives, there’s no stopping you from pulling off a successful career fair. Are you looking for the best fit for the company? Do you wish to present yourself in the global marketplace? Do you wish to promote your business to industry professionals out there? Before going on the employee hunt, you should ask yourself these questions. In order to attract millennial job seekers and recent graduates to your career fair, you should display a list of career opportunities.
Partner With a Virtual Events Platform
The most important aspect of organizing a virtual career fair is to partner with a virtual events platform. You can either look for a budget-friendly platform or partner with a platform that offers a rich and immersive virtual experience. Look for an interactive and engaging virtual career fair platform taking care of all the digital technicalities for you. For a clear understanding, let’s check what should be the features of a virtual platform.
- An integrated platform that receives resumes with each job posting
- Access downloadable materials with a video vault
- Get live chat and audio/video conferencing on one platform
- Use employee profiles and resumes for later hirings
Consider these necessary steps when looking for a platform that works best for your company. Your career fair is an opportunity for the whole business to grow and make a reputable standing in the marketplace. Thus, do not compromise on the quality of your virtual career fair.
Fully customize Your Virtual Booths
The best thing about virtual booths is that it allows exhibitors to display their company culture and control the content they are to give away. In addition, having fully customized booths with standees and videos makes it easier to convey information regarding job openings and vacancies at the company. These are highly interactive spaces with live audio/video chat options. Let us pen down the specifications of a virtual career fair booth.
- Put downloadable videos, brochures, and forms
- Display the job openings per each department
- Company PR and stocks information
- Company and Products introductory videos
- A video of an office tour
- A display of work-life through pictures
A virtual booth has lots of opportunities for the representative to leave a lasting impression on the attendees. Therefore, it is wise to place a well-versed and experienced representative at the fair booth who is able to display the company’s true image. Also, they can check on attendee satisfaction by attending to each of their queries and giving proper time.
Keep a Check on Performance Metrics
An event’s performance metrics define the success of your virtual career fair. The platform allows you to test the functionality of its features and chat interfaces before the event goes live. In fact, organizers can check download, upload, clicks, and event ROI tracking. Through a virtual career fair, you can evaluate the entire performance of the event, from event regenerations to attendee activity at the booths. Thus, you can control every aspect of the event in its entirety. These metrics are further helpful in assessing what worked best for this particular event. So, you can implement the best practices at future events as well.
Promote Your Event Worldwide
In order to get the most out of your event, get the word out to global prospects. Do you want to win a global rush of prospective candidates at your event? Well, to start, market your event through social media platforms and PR. Attract global prospects and speakers to your event by making the online fair access to the masses. Also, run marketing campaigns for your event, from email marketing to social media. Even so, email marketing is the most effective approach to keep attendees interested in your event.
The best approach to go forward is to hire a professional marketing team that would cover the event’s overall marketing, progress, and metrics. In fact, efficient handling would help you achieve the target sooner than expected. You could also get assistance with marketing services by virtual event providers and get global prospects to apply at your virtual job fair.
Keep an eye on the Event’s Progress
After you plan your career fair, you can begin with the process. You can assess the number of leads and confirm conversions from the event. In order to assess the event progress, you need to keep a close eye on the performance and metrics; here’s how you can achieve this;
- Get registration information on the attendees and reach out to job aspirants.
- People who did show up at the event and made it to the last can be easily approached and convinced over partnerships.
- The resumes collected at the event are your asset. These applicants are interested in joining, so quickly fill out the vacant positions.
- Individuals who engage in chats at the booths are potential leads. Guide them well and convert them at the first chance.
- You can also benefit from the live polls and questionnaires by extracting the leads or prospect hires.
How to Hunt Fresh Graduates and Millenials
Although millennials are on the hunt for job opportunities, it does not mean you have a fair right to win them over. Having these tough guys onboard would risk your honest efforts. From marketing to having them at the event would be a great challenge for the company and events platforms. The foremost approach is to attract them to your online event.
Once you have their attention, it is time to give them the best virtual experience so they cannot help but join your company. I know it sounds like a plan but easier said than done. Having remote candidates apply for the jobs and be interested in your offers can be challenging. Millennials out there are looking for better opportunities for their career building. Be it headhunting or employee fill out; your company needs to stay on its toes. At the same time, fresh graduates might get convinced over your first call. Here are some tips for practicing while you are on the hunt.
- Market your employer brand with a strong and confident approach.
- Build a strong company culture and present it to the prospects at each virtual exhibit booth.
- Design interactive booths with video vaults or content that keeps the attendees engaged and interested.
- Engage fresh graduates in groups or individual chats and attend to all their doubts.
- To facilitate interactions among employers and your audiences, run formal webinars, seminars, or speaker sessions.
- Arrange for Q&A sessions where attendees can inquire about your brand, job openings, company culture, or job roles.
- Brief the millennials about your company life, benefits, or allowances and help them towards an informed decision.
- For the success of your digital career event, focus on the live networking of people.
- Indulge everyone in two-way communication from the start of the event.
- Set up a wide range of webinars for attendees to pick from rather than be forced to attend a single session.
- Design a post-event follow-up and have global applicants sign up for your company.
- Give remote employees the information they need to decide if they want to work remotely.
- There are several ways to hunt fresh applicants or millennials down with a virtual events platform and use the opportunity to the fullest.
Conclusion
A virtual career fair is a wholesome experience for job seekers joining from far ends of the world. Resumes are collected, and interviews are conducted right at the spot. Thus, it becomes an easy process for the hiring managers as well as the applicants. Here, the complete guide to hosting the virtual event at an online events platform is the ultimate approach for businesses to join in the digital world. As a result, you can score remote hires and the regional best pool of talents on the go. Certainly, companies today are aiming to maximize their potential and reach. Wish to move your physical hiring needs to an online platform? The platform of Virtual Days offers an immersive and interactive experience for businesses and organizations to hold their recruitments at a virtual event.
Also, check out the ultimate guide to hosting a successful virtual job fair.
Author | Mubashrah Rahim
