Why Choose A Virtual Career Fair? (Benefits & Trends)

Finding qualified candidates that are a perfect match for your skill gaps, company culture, diversity goals and business vision takes time and determination to scout. With recruiters always on the go to find their organizations the best talent, sourcing top candidates is not as simple as merely sharing a job post or hosting a physical recruitment event (would be pretty nice though). A virtual career fair platform can solve these problems!

Virtual career fairs play a key role in helping companies ace staffing without compromising on talent quality, cost or hiring targets. With traditional fairs known to be a hub for recurring challenges, some standard dilemmas faced by employers are:

• Bringing together job seekers and attractive employers under one physical roof.
• Expensive venue rental, logistics, administrative planning and event management.
• Low attendance volume due to the inability of guests and exhibitors to participate from across the state or country without hefty travel price tags.
• Inefficient talent acquisition due to manual resume sorting/shortlisting performed by hiring managers.
• Difficulty in marketing and attracting qualified prospects to the career fair.
• Boring visitor experiences due to limited mediums for sharing informational content.
• No measurable results and real-time insights to determine event ROI and overall effectiveness.

Key Benefits Offered by Virtual Career Fairs

1) Improved recruitment efficiency

The virtual platform can be enriched with applicant tracking tools to help employers part ways with slow candidate shortlisting practices involving sifting through heaps of paper-based applications. Compelling smart resume search features enable exhibitors to filter applicants based on their selected criteria to find relevant talent within a matter of seconds.

2) Higher visitor attendance

Hiring organizations and job seekers are able to register and access the event online from any mobile or desktop device with internet connectivity. Regardless of their location across the globe, the removal of travel and time constraints (when compared to physical events) encourages higher participation and catches the eye of both passive and active candidates.

3) Building candidate pipelines

Gaining access to talent with diverse backgrounds and skillsets, employers benefit from well-rounded candidate pipelines to aid collaborative and swift recruitment. Exhibitors walk away from the event with impressive prospect databases to not just satisfy their existing hiring needs, but be prepared for future ones as well.

4) Easy information exchange

Eliminating need for marketing materials and expensive corporate giveaways, virtual career fair features such as the Video Vault and Resource Center easily share company videos, photo galleries, FAQS, brochures and more to paint an attractive picture reflecting company culture.

Guests can also email these resources to themselves for further sharing and review, making the event highly informative without the usual carbon footprint.

5) Powerful employer branding

Providing employers with personalized booths, the look, colors, style, and feel of the virtual event replicates branding objectives for hosts and exhibitors. Booths are equipped with high-resolution staff avatars in addition to special tabs to share video content, documents, vacancies, company overviews and even chat options.

Transforming engagement with attendees, exhibitors can use their distinct personalities to their advantage to stand out amongst other companies and recruiters.

6) Exciting visitor experience

Did you know that jobs get 36% more applications when paired with video content? Imagine the improved visitor traction if employers used webinars to boost audience interactions and prove commitment to thought leadership. Virtual platforms can host webinars, prerecorded or live, to discuss popular industry topics, have company executives make important announcements, or even invite guest speakers to initiate interesting Q&As.

With a reputation for skyrocketing event attendance, hosts get to benefit from an extended digital footprint due to webinar replay links allowing users to revisit content at a time more convenient.

7) Secure live chat

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. Meanwhile, recruiters can also make use of this technology for quick interviewing to screen candidates on the spot.

Functionality such as incorporating a “Networking Lounge” can also help host staff to communicate with the audience on a wider scale, or provide a platform for guests to the network securely.

8) Hassle-free set up (with no burdensome logistics)

Forget months of event planning, stressful coordination woes, and tearing your hair securing F&B, sound, electricity, venue rental arrangements, etc. A virtual career fair is an awesome time-saver; the online event can be set up in weeks to help hosts accelerate hiring, and not lose precious time in putting together a hiring solution with high risks and unnecessary costs.

9) Cost-effective marketing support

Spreading the word about recruitment events has traditionally been a hassle. Printing newspapers ads, and marketing materials are expenses that add up to be a huge burden on the organizer’s budget.

Virtual career fairs streamline pre-event marketing with vendors mastering email marketing, social media campaigns, and implementing landing pages for easy candidate registration to ensure maximum promotion and visitor attendance.

10) Measurable results

Acquiring real-time data to identify preferred employers, job types, unique and recurring visitors, webinar views, etc. provides measurable insights to help drive consistent improve in event quality. Providing perspective on ROI, hosts can always track and assess how warmly their job seekers have embraced the virtual shift to plan future recruitment initiatives.

Key Takeaways

All hosts face unique challenges when planning and executing their career fair strategy. Functionality limitations can be an obstacle that can break instead of make recruitment a success.

Virtual events accommodate a global audience spanning in thousands in an online setting with benefits including brilliant branding impact, cost and time savings, engagement, marketing, and distraction-free communication. A force to be reckoned with when it comes to accomplishing extraordinary hiring outcomes, choosing a virtual career fair for talent acquisition is highly recommended.

Want to learn more about Virtual Career Fairs? Read “The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Career Fairs”.

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