Introduction
If you are a recruiter in 2022, then surely, you’ve come across the term Virtual Job Fair or Online Job Fair, and it is fair (no pun intended) to conclude that with the widespread disruption caused by the pandemic, digitization, and in this case, virtual hiring has become omnipresent.
To give you some context, 2020-2021 presented one of the most challenging job markets for recruiters, with traditional recruitment processes ruled out indefinitely. This inconsistent economic environment pushed recruiters over the technology tipping point and impelled them to leverage digital technologies as means of recruiting.
This unprecedented change, propelled by the growing adoption of digital technologies, has led to changes in the dynamics of the current job market, and has radically affected how recruitment is carried out.
Today, online job fairs have become extremely popular and are considered an integral part of HR processes worldwide. Organizations that never imagined organizing virtual job fairs are reaping the many benefits of hosting one.
What is a Virtual Job Fair?
In essence, virtual job fairs and traditional job fairs serve the same purpose of bringing employers and job-seekers on a unified venue to discuss employment opportunities, except that the latter is organized virtually.
Organizers get full flexibility as to how the event should look like, how long it should last, who can attend the event and more, just like a traditional event.
A virtual fair consists of several virtual elements that replicate real spaces in an in-person event, like the Virtual Lobby, Virtual Conference Hall, Virtual Info Desk, Virtual Networking Lounge, Virtual Employer Booth and Virtual Meeting Rooms.
Once participants log in, they can choose to enter any of the above spaces, interact with different employers and fellow attendees via various communication tools, but we’ll get to that later.
In many ways, virtual job fairs mirror traditional, in-person ones. Read on to understand the various benefits of hosting an online job fair.
Importance of Virtual Job Fairs
Apart from complying with the current health and safety guidelines, online job fairs offer a ton of benefits to the recruiters, that range from cost-cutting to increased accessibility. The following are the benefits of hosting a Virtual Job Fair-
1. Greater Reach
Virtual job fairs have the potential of attracting 10x more traffic due to their unlimited capacity, and can run 24×7 to accommodate different time zones. The reachability of online job fairs is the major selling point for recruiters.
Hosting an online job fair enables recruiters to reach a wider and global pool of talent, enhancing their prospects of hiring the best candidates.
With in-person job fairs, recruiters were constricted by geographical barriers, and could only meet so many job applicants within a specific location. That has changed with online job fairs.
2. Cost-effective and Time Saving
In-person events, in general, are notorious for burning a hole in the organizer’s pockets, with costs coming in from logistics, accommodations, and technical assistance to name a few. However, with virtual job fairs, recruiters have learned that all these costs can be avoided.
Additionally, setting up and organizing a traditional event can be extremely time consuming, depending on the scale of the event. But with online job fairs, the setup time is fairly minimal, and is standard irrespective of the scale and magnitude of the event.
3. Improved Analytics
Analytics is reshaping every aspect of business, and is fueling better and more informed decisions across verticals and industries. The same holds true for the events industry. It is a well-known fact that hosting online job fairs means you get access to a ton of valuable event data that can be used for your recruitment marketing efforts. You can send invitations to a targeted list of candidates in your talent database, or use the data to analyze what type of candidates are participating in your event.
Read Importance Of Data Analytics During Virtual Events to understand how you can fully leverage event data.
How to host a successful Virtual Job Fair?
1. Before the Event
A. Strategic Planning
To host a successful virtual event, you need to have a clear cut strategy in mind. What are my objectives?, what is the demographics of the participants?, what are their interests and how long should the event run?. These are some of the questions you, as an organizer, should ask yourself.
This will help you chart out a roadmap for the event and create an event that resonates with the audience and delivers the objectives.
B. Choose the right Platform
Choosing the right platform can be tricky. However, here are a few things you should look for when choosing a virtual event platform.
- Engagement
- Branding
- Networking
- 3D Visualization
- Security
- Analytics & Admin Dashboards
C. Market your Event
It is essential to market your event to your targeted audience, in this case job-seekers, to ensure you get the best bang for your buck, especially so because virtual events have no such cap to the number of attendees who can attend.
A Few Actionable Tips to Market Your Online Job Fair:
- First off, create a landing page that clearly conveys the topic, time, agenda, and who should attend.
- With the ever-rising popularity in social media channels, social media can play a key role in drumming up registrations for your job fair. Don’t restrict yourself to Facebook and Instagram, explore other relatively new social media channels like LinkedIn, Discord, Clubhouse, etc.
- They say there is no marketing campaign that an email campaign won’t make better. Shoot an email to all your clientele/subscribers informing about your job fair.
- The breakout trend in marketing in recent times has been Influencer Marketing, so much so that the global influencer marketing platform market size will grow from USD 6.0 billion in 2020 to USD 24.1 billion by 2025. Invite influencers on your platform, and have them promote the event on their social media channels.
2. During the Event
A. Engagement
Attendee engagement is vital when hosting an online job fair. Ideally, you should choose a platform that offers features such as Live Chats and Polls, Gamification, Leaderboards, Session Ratings, etc; the more, the merrier.
B. Networking
Networking to an event is what jobs are for job-seekers, one cannot exist without the other. Features like Networking Lounge, Meeting Rooms, Chat Rooms, AI Matchmaking, etc facilitates effective networking opportunities.
C. Branding
As recruiters, you are looking for the best candidates, and on the other side of the coin, job-seekers, too, are looking for the best companies to work for. So, it is in your best interest to present your brand in a way that helps you hire the best, or at least, right candidates.
3. After the Event
A. Feedback
What’s a better source to get feedback regarding your event than from the horse’s mouth? After-event feedback is one of the best ways for recruiters to learn what hit and what missed. Feedback can range anywhere from attendee experience to session ratings. The best virtual event platforms offer integrations with apps like Survey Monkey, that make the feedback-taking experience smoother.
B. Analytics
Complementing attendee feedback with concrete data bridges the gap between guessing and knowing. As an organizer, you need to have access to data-backed insights to understand how to improve your next event.
Features of a Virtual Job Fair
If you are a recruiter hosting a virtual job fair for the first time, then you may have misgivings about the effectiveness of virtual job fairs in generating the desired result. To help you overcome those misgivings, here are top 5 virtual job fair features that help you mirror an in-person event
A. Job Boards
Recruiters can use virtual job boards to update open job positions, descriptions, and vacancies.
B. Interview Scheduler
Once a candidate applies, and the profile is short-listed, recruiters can use the interview scheduler feature to set up an interview with the candidates.
C. Interview Rooms
Once the interview is agreed upon, the recruiter and the candidate can engage in one-on-one audio/video calls via interview rooms.
D. Job Finder
By simply searching for the company/job title, candidates can view all the open positions related to the search term. This helps candidates find the right opportunity and have a smooth job fair experience.
Virtual Job Fair Example
Lingua Talent is a Talent Management and a leading global language community based in Cairo and operating worldwide in the aim of connecting linguists and language jobs seekers and speakers with proper employers. The client wanted to host a virtual job fair for students, that would connect them with employers from all across the world.
About Samaaro
Samaaro is a powerful, customizable & the Best Virtual Event Platform that organizations around the globe have leveraged to host scalable and engaging events. Our reputed clients have hosted Virtual Exhibitions, Virtual Tradeshows, Virtual summits, Virtual trade shows, Virtual fairs, Virtual conferences, Virtual awards ceremonies, and more on Samaaro. With a plethora of features, such as a powerful analytics dashboard, one-on-one, and group chats/video calls, custom software integrations and more, Samaaro empowers you to host impactful virtual events that effectively connect you with your global audience and achieve business milestones.
