How to use virtual events to attract top talent to your organisation

Student behaviour & insights

Whether you are participating in one of our Virtual Super Fairs or attending a university run virtual event, deciding on the best way to engage with students in a virtual event setting is stressful! Our insights team has compiled the analytics and trends that we picked up on when running the 50+ virtual fairs last year.

Students do their research!

A whopping 69.1% of students researched an employer before each fair. Whilst in person events are a more personable way of connecting with candidates, one of the biggest advantages of virtual events for students is how quickly they can access an employers profile. They will visit your website, view your LinkedIn page and other resources to help them understand your organisation, who you hire, what type of degrees you accept applications from and when applications open and close.

What content students are they looking at?

Okay, so now you’re probably wondering ‘what on Earth are students looking for on my employer profile before they enter the video booth?’ Interestly, diversity content and graduate reviews were extremely popular amongst students!

This data is in line with all the student trends we see, as they are searching for information that will help them understand what makes certain organisations unique and how they could fit into that culture.

What do students research before virtual events?

How to make your virtual event incredible

Here are our top tips to ensure you put your organization’s best foot forward to attract ideal talent!

Decide on an agenda

Planning is absolutely essential to nailing your virtual event. There’s a range of options can choose from when it comes to planning your agenda, we’ve listed our top three:

1. Presentation

Pop your marketing cap on and prepare a presentation talking about your organisation, the culture, your graduate program and recruitment process. You can invite some of your top graduates to talk about your program and offer their insights as to what life is like as a graduate. Remember, no one is a fan of ‘death by powerpoint’ so make it snappy and super engaging!

2. Open Q&A

Traditionally, this is the typical format at in person career fairs. Also known as ‘Ask us anything’ sessions, students can drop into your booth and start popping questions into the chat box. When appropriate, you can always invite students to turn their videos and mics on and they can ask the questions themselves. This is a neat way to make the session a little more personable.

3. Speed interviews

Want to give students an opportunity to show why they would be a great fit for your grad or intern program? Why not set up ‘speed interviews’ where students can book a timeslot in your diary during the virtual event? This is a great fit for employers who are worried about student numbers and want to stand out from the crowd of other employers at the virtual fair. Want to know the best part? If you’re attending a Prosple virtual fair, we do all the setup and support to make this possible. Because who doesn’t like skipping admin!

Side note, if you are attending a Prosple Virtual Event, be sure to submit your agenda.

Publish your jobs, even if they aren’t open yet!

Why are students attending a virtual careers fair? To get hired! By publishing your roles, students can do their research before entering your booth and understand key questions they may have like: 

• What degrees do you accept applications from? 
• Do you take applications from international students? 
• When do applications open and close? 

This is a huge time save for recruiters as you cut down repetitive questions too! 

Applications not open yet? No problem! 

If you’re a Prosple client, you can submit your opportunities and we can set up a ‘Register your interest’ button so that students can save the job to their dashboard and get notified when the big day comes and applications open up!

Make the experience memorable!

This is your chance to get creative and have fun with it! Think about this from the students perspective, what do they need to know and why would they choose you over your competitors? Are your grads working from the office for the day? What about an ad hoc ‘Office Tour’? Guest appearance from your CEO? What an awesome opportunity for grads to hear from a company’s CEO in a virtual fair, and it only takes a few minutes of their time, one click of a button and they can present your organisation’s vision to hundreds of students! Now that is memorable!

We’d love to hear from you, what unique ways have you found to engage with students at virtual events? Drop me an email, I’d love to hear from you as we’re always eager to hear what creative approaches our grad community are using to engage and attract students!