The Why: Host A Virtual Job Fair Online
To begin with immersive Virtual and Hybrid Events enable you to showcase your brand and company culture in front of top talent. Here are some of the key benefits of that.
Remove Geographic Barriers
Going virtual with your company’s career fairs and expos means improved reach and chances to attract the right hires because you are no longer limited by your physical location. Meet your audience in the comfort of their own home.
Improve User Journey and Experience
Online job fairs recreate the feel of live events without the stress and pressure of crowds. Provide a seamless and interactive experience for job seekers in beautiful and rich virtual environments. This allows job seekers to explore and interact with the online career fair leveraging group or private one-on-one chat and video calls as well as one-to-many video broadcasts.
Generate Revenue & Lower Costs
Taking your career fair online not only maximizes the job seeker attendance. It also offers a better ROI allowing companies to be present and promote their brand while saving massive costs spent on traditional job fairs.
Better Hires
Employers can efficiently communicate with targeted and diverse talent pools. Engage with their ideal candidates, hold interviews on the spot and offer a better and more engaged experience by decreasing response times to candidates both during and post-event.
The How To: Host An Immersive Virtual Job Fair
5 most important steps to help you through hosting a successful online virtual job fair
Organizing a virtual career fair makes the set-up process much easier and faster but it still requires a lot of hard work to ensure its success.
1. Build your strategy
Start by clearly defining a plan
Like with any activity offline or online you will want to have a clear path forward. Here are a few starter points to consider when building your plan.
- Set a date for the virtual job fair
- Define the scope of your career fair
- Define the attendance rate are you expecting
- Define the goals you are looking to achieve
If you are the hiring company you can go even deeper and refine your plan. Be more specific with your company’s offering depending on your exact goals. For example:
- Are you only looking to provide an overall brand experience
- Are you going to focus on specific job offerings
- Are you only promoting the brand
- Will you be conducting on the spot interviews
- What content you want to promote and how much time will you have to create the content
2. Set your budget
Once you have a clear plan it’s time to figure out a budget
We already know that hosting and organizing a virtual career fair is cost-effective. But there are also a number of factors that will determine how much you are going to invest. Here are some of the main ones:
- Are you planning recurring events or a one-time event?
- How many days will the event run for and how many hours per day?
- How many streaming hours?
- Will you need the event to remain available online. If so for how long?
- What features and services you want for your virtual fair?
3. Choose a platform which fits your needs
Features and level of immersion will dictate your choice
2D web conferencing platforms like Zoom and WebEx, for example, are great tools to use, but they leave users hungry for more interactivity and connection. This is why more platforms are shapeshifting from 2D representations of physical spaces to fully interactive 3D environments. This gives you more options to choose from when selecting the online platform and technology for your virtual career fair.
Accessibility & Ease of Use
The platform has to be easy to navigate, no downloads, installations or Flash, accessible on all modern devices and browsers, and 100% mobile friendly are currently preferred features for online career fairs.
Interaction & Communication
How do you see the interaction process between job seekers and employers? As a company how can you efficiently connect with job seekers? Screen-share, one-to-one or group, text, audio and video chat, Q&A sessions, workshop options, and breakout rooms are must-have features.
Design & Customization
Flexibility to allow for a fully-branded virtual experience within virtual stands and booths for increased exposure. And this is where 3D immersive virtual event platforms like MootUp perform beautifully because they allow for more customization options resulting in a modern interactive experience. How quickly can you have your spaces up and running and how easy is it to make changes and updates?
Flexibility & Integrations
Can the platform support you to pivot back to live or hybrid job fairs while still keeping the benefits of the online virtual scenario? What integration options does it offer for ticketing or sponsors for example?
Engagement & Gamification
What are the tools the platform offers to increase engagement? The ability to post jobs & receive applications in real-time during the event. But also interactive booths and content. Downloadable content but also trivia quizzes, leaderboards, scavenger hunts, escape rooms.
Data & Analytics
Does the platform allow you to analyze performance and participation? Metrics such as attendance breakdowns and engagement with booths and content offerings are key to improving future events. Analyze them to identify features that were popular or not so popular, target market, engage and understand your attendees better, contributing to driving your business growth.
Security
At any online recruiting event, personal information sharing is high which is why it is important to choose a secure virtual event platform.
Technical & Staff Support
If in-person events have hitches, virtual events have glitches.
Because of this you want to choose a platform that allows you to call on the software provide for help should anything go wrong. Clearly specify what type of support you expect and what are each side’s responsibilities. Take a dry run before the actual job fair.
Onboarding options are great not just for you but your staff, sponsors and customers too.
4. Event Marketing & Engagement
Make the most of social media to get audience traction and create buzz around the job fair
Here are some ideas for your company or to share with the companies that booked a stand at your career fair.
- Custom and simple registration forms – only collect the details you need. You can then use this data for personalized recruiting during and even after the event
- Icebreakers such as Q&A sessions and live chat facilitate two-way communication
- Diverse and engaging content that can be used to tell the company story – videos, product photos, and presentations
- Add gamification -contests such as leaderboards, sponsored prizes, or coupons. Increased engagement increases candidate retention.
- Offer content candidates can take with them in the form of downloadable content that is emailed or saved to their device.
- Ability to process real-time job applications and interviews
- Setup private room areas that allow for a more direct and personal experience and interaction much like that at a real career fair.
5. Follow Up With Attendees
The conversation doesn’t have to end when the event ends
Saying thank you or asking for feedback is an essential step. Use contact information received during the event to follow up with everyone on your attendee list.
Conclusion
Virtual events are powerful, effective and here to stay
And the benefits can be appreciated and leveraged for years to come, and can help you grow, expand and enhance your events.
Why MootUp
Utilizing a unique technology MootUp was developed to provide all these features and capabilities across the widest range of devices possible including smartphones, laptops, tablets, and all modern VR and AR headsets.
MootUp has the ability to scale to match the needs for the largest events and conferences. It offers 50+ instantly available 3D environments or the option to bring your own. You can have your event spaces up and running in a matter of days.
Attendees can customize to the last detail and create characters that really represent who they are using the fully integrated avatar-based system that supports self-expression and inclusion.
With it’s deep integrations with tools such as Zoom, WebEx, Bluejeans, and Microsoft Teams MootUp is fully flexible in supporting you to create virtual career fairs that provide a high level of interactivity and impressive brand building in a safe and controlled environment.
Let us show you around our platform, book a demo today and have your event up and running in weeks. You can also download our complete guide on how to host a virtual fair.
For the latest platform features and XR and virtual event news please connect with us on social:
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