What is a Virtual Career Fair?

Virtual Career FairVirtual Career Fairs work like an off-line career fair translating a lobby, exhibit halls, booths and other locations into an online 2D environment. Virtual Career Fairs are used to connect job seekers from any location and device (desktop, tablet or phone) with employers. Typically there are live open house hours advertised so that applicants can chat directly with recruiters or hiring managers to ask questions.

Virtual Career Fair Benefits

  1. Savings to companies and recruiters: Since the career fair is virtual, rather than at a set location in the physical world, it costs less to host. You don’t have to worry about booking a large event space to hold the job fair, you won’t have to rent equipment or supplies, and your hiring managers and recruiters won’t have to leave the comfort of their offices in order to man virtual recruiting booths.
  2. Easier to recruit across a large geographic area: While a off-line job fairs only reach candidates at a specific location, a virtual career fair expands the organizations reach to anywhere in the world. One global professional services firm held a two-day virtual career fair that spanned 40 countries, yielding 20,000 registrants and 10,000 attendees over the course of 48 hours.
  3. Attract passive job seekers: Many of the attendees who attend virtual career fairs are hard-to-find “passive” candidates who are currently employed and appreciate the ease (no need to take a vacation day) and privacy (they have concerns with being seen at a physical job fair) of attending a virtual career fair.
  4. Engage with potential recruits or new hires: Hiring organizations want to maximize the level of candidate engagement before people are brought in for interviews to ensure that they are the right fit. A virtual job fair allows you to get a better understanding of candidates before you engage. Job seekers can view documents they’ve provided, interact via chat and video, etc.
  5. Build your brand: Virtual career fairs can be highly customized as an extension of your companies brand. For example, a photo of your actual office lobby can be used as the virtual career fair lobby to give the job seekers a feel for your corporate culture and environment.

Duration: A typical virtual career fair has 1-3 “live” days where there is a window of a few hours that recruiters are available to chat with job seekers. Then it can be left up on-demand for 30 or 60 days. Companies that have ongoing hiring needs will purchase an annual subscription to have ongoing live days throughout the year.

Interactivity:

  • A welcome video can greet candidates with a message from an executive
  • Virtual career fairs can offer comparability tests where job seekers answer questions about their skills and interests to determine which booths have suitable jobs.
  • Job seekers can browser and apply for jobs, watch live or recorded webinars, view corporate videos, download documents such as benefits offered, and chat with recruiters.

Bottom line, virtual career fairs can reduce costs and eliminate the need to travel, speed up hiring and improve your access to the global talent pool—so you can find people with the right skills, whenever and wherever you need them.

For more information on Communique’s Virtual Career Fair Software Platform.

 

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