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Career fairs (part 2): Hosting a successful virtual event
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In today’s digital world, even career fairs are being held online. There are some obvious advantages, such as not being limited by driving distance. However, they can be costly if you use a vendor. You should check with your campus IT services first to find out if they have the capability to create a portal for your event.
Brent Arslaner, vice president of marketing for Unisfair, recommends taking the following steps to plan and host a successful virtual career fair:
1. Create goals. Identify and segment your target audience at a granular level. Create a strategy and set goals to give you a yardstick to measure results (i.e., number of positions filled, résumés submitted, etc.).
2. Begin planning months in advance. The keys to a successful virtual job fair are content (i.e., job opportunities) and audience generation. That is why the best practice for advance scheduling is 12 weeks to maximize promotion.
3. Schedule events carefully. Don’t go up against major industry events or major holidays. Take into account the key time zones that you want to attract when determining the timeframe in which the event will be open and manned with recruiters.
4. Promote early and often. Promoting a virtual job fair is critical. For attendees, map your promotional campaign to event content. Emphasize job openings, types of positions, etc. Start 60 days before your event – you can cram preparations into six weeks, but start earlier for greater success.
5. Maximize registration. Use an online event registration page or micro-site as the landing page when candidates click through to details on the virtual career fair. Minimize the number of clicks needed to register. Put a short description of your event at the top of your registration page. Embed a video or audio “teaser” to your event in your landing page.
Keep your registration process simple by asking for only basic “business card” information plus two to three qualifying questions. A long form is a barrier to registration, and you can collect additional information during the event using surveys, polls, live Q&A questions and interactions at exhibitors’ virtual booths.
6. Maximize attendance. Based on Unisfair’s experience, about half of registrants (52 percent) will show up for your virtual event. Take your target attendance and double that number to set your goal in registrants. Stay in touch with registrants through multiple event reminders.
| <-- Part 1: Hosting an on-campus career fair | Part 3: How to be a successful attendee --> |
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