Cynthia Gurne is president of CareerCentralOn-Line, a workforce solutions company
focused on delivering innovative solutions to recruiting and retention.
cbgurne@careercentralonline.com
VIRTUAL JOB AND CAREER FAIRS
IS THERE A BENEFIT?
Cynthia Gurne
“Virtual events are emerging as the ‘cool’ factor in recruiting among the environmentally
friendly young talent entering the job market today. We’re now quickly reaching the point
where meeting gravel is becoming politically incorrect, and virtual meetings a positive
recruiting strategy of wide appeal to today’s workforce”*
This trend is good for everyone—the job seeker, the recruiter and the organization. In
addition to reducing “carbon footprints” **, organizations are able to reduce direct and
indirect costs of recruiting—including the wear and tear on individuals who find
themselves “recruiting road warriors”—traveling sometimes 50-70% of their time to
conferences, job fairs and special events.
Virtual job and career events will never replace in-person meetings; but they can make
those meetings more productive. Virtual job fairs can deliver “live” information about
the organization, its culture, its opportunities. Employers can integrate virtual events
with their application processes—applying on –line, conducting pre-qualifying
assessments and completing required documents thereby qualifying candidates.
Interested candidates can learn more about opportunities that match their interests and
geographic preferences. Employers can also attract more qualified candidates to virtual
events via networking, referral prizes and continuous branding and communications
events. By recognizing that individual candidates want to know what the opportunity is
for career advancement, and if there is a strong enough “fit” to make the effort of
applying worth it, the employer can create more actionable job application activities.
Successful recruiting is not the result of a single job fair event, whether on-site or on-line.
It is building a strong qualified pipeline of talent through many strategies and activities
over time. It is communicating the opportunities; mapping the opportunities to the talent
community; maintaining contact with the talent pipeline over time and building a loyal
community of employees who are your best recruiters.
Along with the benefits of virtual job fairs, are also the risks.
CareerCentralOn-Line launched a pilot virtual job fair reaching military and veterans
around the world a year ago. We learned a lot from that experience: good and bad.
One of the most critical lessons learned was the importance of having the participating
employers and attendees being totally prepared and engaged in the process. Just as with
traditional events, recruiters need to be knowledgeable about their organization and
Cynthia Gurne is president of CareerCentralOn-Line, a workforce solutions company
focused on delivering innovative solutions to recruiting and retention.
cbgurne@careercentralonline.com
opportunities—and be able to communicate them via chat tools and content. Individuals
need to prepare themselves for the opportunity to chat with the recruiter. Having
information accessible at the booths and learning centers can help facilitate a productive
exchange of information. But too often, people apply for positions where there is no
match. And highly qualified and available candidates never get a follow-up.
We also had technical problems which we were not prepared for—including suddenly
seeing firewalls rise when there was a higher level of chat activity between employers
and candidates.
And finally, we learned that it is critical that a total strategy supporting pre and post event
follow-up be in place. Without a shared understanding of what the goal is, and how
success will be measured, the challenge of developing performance metrics and reporting
on those metrics becomes a barrier to building a successful virtual strategy.
Although organizations use different models for determining cost per hire, there is no
doubt that virtual events can help reduce some of the costs of recruiting, leverage other
costs that are part of a marketing and branding strategy, and leverage the organization’s
resources across programs and hiring initiatives.
Most people engaged in recruiting enjoy some or many of the activities that are part of
the recruiting process—including the travel. But, at the end of the day, the month, the
year there are three questions which have to be answered:
1. What was the ROI of the recruiting activity?
2. Would you have valued limiting the travel required?
3. Could you have reached more people, or at the very minimum, reach people not
able to attend live events because of their location, they were employed or they
were disabled?
A vision to keep in mind as you weigh the pros and cons of a virtual job fair is the last
time you traveled two days for a one-three day recruiting event carrying materials, seeing
two hundred people who weren’t qualified for your positions, packing up your display
booth, running to catch the shuttle to the airport so you could get home.
Not only will you not have to go through the scenario described above, you can leave the
recruiting exhibit hall with your booth still up so that people can visit, upload your
information and apply on-line long after you’ve gone and the lights are out.
* Genesys Corporation report
** http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
Visit this site to calculate the carbon cost of your travel by car, bus, train or plane.