Finding qualified candidates that are a perfect match for your skill gaps, company culture, and business vision takes time and determination. With recruiters always on the go to find their organizations the best talent, finding these candidates is not as simple as merely sharing a job post. A virtual career fair, however, can solve these problems!

With the rise of COVID-19, virtual job fairs became the only way to reach a wide audience of candidates without putting people’s health at risk. Though, many top recruiters have taken advantage of these virtual events way before any indications of a global pandemic. In this blog, we dive into how job fairs work and how you can use them to your advantage.

How do Virtual Job Fairs Work?

The format of an online career fair can be as diverse as the candidates you wish to reach. Many recruiting technology companies offer hosting platforms for webinars, and these can be used to host a job fair. You can also set it up via any webinar platform that allows you to present to a group of registered attendees. You can have recruiters “manning your booth” (chat) online, answer candidate questions for a general audience, but also move the conversations into another channel for a one-on-one virtual interview.

These virtual career fair events can be held after traditional office hours, allowing candidates who are currently employed to attend live. You can also record the presentation and offer it via a link on your social channels or on a careers page on your website.

Benefits

There are so many advantages to a virtual job fair. An employer that is willing to recruit via an online career fair is probably more digitally sophisticated and open to flexible jobs or has open positions where technology skills are prized. This means you’ll make a great first impression on your candidates, as well as bring them into your talent funnel from awareness to consideration to applicants all in a short period of time.

For more benefits check out the list below:

Easy Access – Perhaps the biggest benefit of virtual career fairs is that virtual events eliminate the obstacle of geography. Candidates can join your virtual career fair from anywhere with the click of a button, making it easier to connect with ideal talent outside your immediate vicinity. The convenience of a virtual career fair also makes it easy for busy job seekers to participate. Anything you can do to make things easier for yourself and candidates will only improve your results.

Convenience – Hiring organizations and job seekers are able to register and access the event online from any device with internet connectivity. Regardless of their location across the globe, the removal of travel and time constraints encourages higher participation. Talent can be driven away by long queues at booths and overcrowded event venues. Virtual career fairs provide booths with their own chat features which enables job-seekers to quickly reach out to the booth representatives and get answers in real-time.

Saves Money – Compared to in-person events, the cost of virtual career fairs is a lot lower. Virtual events have no venue fees, there’s no travel involved, and they don’t require as much staffing to execute.

Saves Time – Having an in-person job fair can take weeks or months to plan. From securing a venue to planning out schedules and marketing the event, in-person fairs can be overwhelming. Virtual job fairs, on the other hand, can take less than an hour or two to be set up.

Measurable Results – Virtual job fairs are one way to acquire real-time data to identify employers, job types, recurring visitors, views, and more. This helps drive consistency and improve event quality. Hosts are also able to track and assess how well job seekers have embraced the shift to virtual events and can plan future initiatives based upon those results.

Grow with ebs/Growth!

With benefits like these, virtual career fairs should be a central part of your conversational recruiting strategy. Because only a small percentage of companies are regularly holding virtual career fairs, you’re going to stand out from your competitors by executing such events.

If you want more information on why virtual job fairs work, check out episode #82 of our talent, sales, and scales podcast here.