How to Host a Virtual Job Fair and What are its Benefits?

A virtual job fair is an event where fresh graduates, as well as other job seekers, can interact with potential employers and recruiters virtually over the intranet. As the entire event happens online, the attendees can visit any booth, gain information, ask questions and network with prospective hiring companies from within their comfort zone.

To begin with, a virtual job fair is not as expensive as the typical job fair. And as the event happens online, you have the ability to widen the event’s scope to include attendees from across the world. So, let us check how you can host a virtual job fair using these simple steps.

1. Choose a proper platform

Do thorough research and select the best of virtual job fair platforms to conduct your event. The basic features provided by most virtual job fair platforms comprise live streams, chat rooms, branded booths and a provision for videos and presentations. Some additional features that you should consider are if the online job fair platform can be optimised for smartphone users and if it allows access to candidate resumes. Keep in mind the kind of crowd that you hope to draw while selecting the online platform.

2. Develop a proper strategy

Virtual job fairs do not occur overnight. You need thorough planning to ensure that your online job fair becomes a success. Create a detailed list of all your requirements, from the number of staff to the number of resources and new software applications, which you may need to buy. Create an exhaustive plan followed by a timeline for the start and completion of each task.

A few crucial aspects you should consider include but do not limit to:

• The number of staff to hire
• The number of expected attendees
• Additional software requirements, like Applicant Tracking System, Scheduling, Resume Comparing Software and Webinar
• Cost of the virtual career fair 2020 platform
• Recruitment firms or companies that you wish to partner with
• Resources that need to be created for the fair
• The kind of job fair you plan to organize. For instance, do you plan to host a job exploration fair or a one-topic job fair? Is it going to be one with multiple employers or a single employer job fair or job fair specifically for fresh college graduates?

3. Plan your budget

After you outline all your requirements, the next thing you should do is to plan out your budget/expenses for the virtual career fair. A virtual fair will have far lesser expenses than a traditional job fair, but the online fair may produce some newer expenses such as the online platform and additional software requirements, which you may have to pay money to use. You may get some of the software for free, which can further save your costs, but review the recruitment software and the ATS software before making the final choice. There is no set budget requirement for a virtual career fair; they vary as per the scope and requirements of the organizing company.

4. Set up an attractive online booth

Like a traditional job fair, virtual career fairs too have online booths or stalls, where a job seeker can approach to gain information about employment opportunities. These virtual stalls allow them to interact with the recruiters and employees and network actively with different job seekers.

The features or highlights of your virtual stall would be based on the kind of software platform you use for the virtual job fair, as well as the employment opportunities showcased at the event. Branded and colourful online stalls with easy navigation will get the most attention. You may plan to invest in the info packets, videos, chatrooms, virtual tours and live video streams of noted speakers at the event.

5. Build partnerships and start recruiting staff

Recruitment agencies, employers, companies and guest or expert speakers should be contacted in advance, much before the actual date of the virtual career fair 2020. Pitch the fair to your prospective partners and reap the benefits of joining the event and accessing their contributions. It is better to approach your prospective partners with a fully developed plan and strategy, followed by well-defined timelines. This brings credibility to your virtual job fair. You could use proper means of communication, such as the phone, email or social media to contact your prospective partners.

After your partners confirm their presence at the event, you get a better idea about your staff requirements for the event. You may need the services of chat room moderators, content creators and reps to screen through the resumes, among others.

6. Advertise the event

Job portals, social media and email are some of the potent marketing channels to market and advertise your virtual job fair. The best way to spread the word about the event is through recruiters and companies who are participating in the event. Asking them to help with the marketing would lessen the workload and would allow you to reach out to a wider base of audience.

If the scope and scale of a virtual job fair are high, you may wish to consider hiring a marketing expert or team to handle your marketing requirements.

7. Keep the attendees informed

After the graduates and job seekers visit your stall at the virtual job fair, you can send out preparation tips, reminders, speaker details, workshop information and much more. Build a connection with your attendees through social media while trying to identify the different kinds of additional Information they ought to seek at the fair. Seek their suggestions and make feasible additions or adjustments into the virtual job fair, and relay their suggestions or requests to the appropriate employers and/or recruiters so that they can customise their programs as per their target audience. This will boost engagement among the attendees of the event.

The benefits or organizing a virtual job fair

1. Enhanced recruitment efficiency

The virtual platform can bring in more efficiency to your recruitment efforts with the help of an effective applicant tracking tool, which will allow you to track the most suitable candidates from the list of attendees for the online job fair. The smart screening feature of the platform will also allow employers to screen the candidates more efficiently. They do not need to rely on the slow manual screening process to distinguish the candidates.

2. A higher number of attendees

The virtual job fair removes any kind of travel or time constraints that job seekers may possess. Plus, online job fairs mostly do not carry registration fees or other charges to attend the event. Therefore, they are far more cost-effective than physical job fairs, luring more candidates into the online fair.

Further, the online medium widens the scope for your visitors. Visitors from across the globe can visit your online fair. This greatly increases the volume of your attendees with active and passive candidates alike visiting the job fair for new job opportunities.

3. Easy exchange of information

The online job fairs eliminate the need for different marketing and advertising materials followed by expensive corporate gifts to lure the candidates. Rather, the online medium allows for more easy and effective exchange of information via corporate company videos, pictures and documents. The information reaches the candidate directly. This allows you to personalise the information for each candidate, which brings in exclusivity and adds value to job fair recruitment.

You can directly send the company information and brochures to the candidate without having to spend money on fancy printouts. This exchange of information yields better rewards than other forms do.

4. Create candidate pipelines

The virtual job fair allows you to get in touch with candidates from across the globe. As a result, you get access to candidates from diverse backgrounds, skill sets and educational qualifications. This allows you to create a healthy candidate pool of the top talent, followed by the most and least suitable candidates.

This candidate pipeline will allow you to create a proper strategy to get in touch with the top talent in your pool and seek them with your job opportunity. This will greatly help you with a swift screening and recruitment process. Plus, the online medium aids better collaboration between the candidates and the employers.

5. Powerful branding

By conducting a virtual job fair, you enter into the medium the audience is most comfortable with — the online medium. This medium gives you the opportunity to reach out to a maximum number of job seekers within their comfort zone. This boosts the credibility of your company and greatly increases your brand awareness. You would be seen as a company they can easily approach to seek employment opportunities. This creates a powerful brand image of the company.

Also, your ability to bring employers, recruiters, and talent all under one roof will be greatly beneficial to one and all, which will further make your brand more credible and powerful among job seekers.

Hosting a virtual job fair is a far more economical proposition than the typical job fair, especially during these times of the pandemic where there are restrictions on public, social gatherings. But a virtual job fair widens your horizons beyond your national boundaries; so, you can reach out to recruiters and job seekers from around the world and invite them to your event. Finally, the attendees will be more engaged and involved with the online event as they can attend by still staying within their comfort zone.