Virtual Career Fairs: A Tool for Engaging Students in Employability Online
Having an online presence is becoming increasingly important for all university services, no less careers and employability services. With growing numbers of distance, part-time and international learners, in addition to the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen a shift towards online or blended provision, having online resources and support is no longer an option for careers services, but a necessity.
Against this background, virtual careers fairs have become a cornerstone of student recruitment and career exploration for universities. For careers and employability service (CES) leaders and professionals, maximising online engagement with students during these events is crucial. This article explores practical tips and strategies to ensure your virtual careers fair fosters meaningful connections between students and employers.
Understanding Student Needs
To deliver an effective virtual careers fair that engages students, it’s essential to understand the needs and circumstances of those students. To ensure greatest impact and spread the word successfully about your event, consider the following action points:
Targeted Communication: This would involve segmenting student audiences based on year of study, course, and career interests. You could tailor communication relating to virtual careers fairs to highlight relevant employers and workshops.
Interactive Content: Incorporate live Q&A sessions, polls, and interactive presentations to maintain student interest. Consider using platforms that allow for gamification elements or virtual tours of company offices. You can then use the data collected from this interactivity to better understand student needs and inform your services and events in the future.
Accessibility: Ensure the virtual platform is accessible on a variety of devices and offers closed captions for presentations.
Engaging Pre-Fair Strategies
The work you do to engage students ahead of your careers fair will be crucial to its success. Consider taking the following steps:
Early Promotion: Promote the event well in advance through university channels, social media, and student societies. Highlight success stories from past virtual fairs for both students and employers.
Preparation Resources: Provide students with resources for crafting compelling elevator pitches and CV reviews. Offer mock interview sessions to boost confidence to not only encourage them to attend, but also to have meaningful interactions with employers.
Optimising the Virtual Platform
The success of any online event is contingent on the suitability of the platform used to host it, and this is no less true for virtual careers fairs. Some steps for optimising the platform you use to host your fair could include:
Intuitive Interface: Choose a user-friendly platform that allows students to navigate easily between employer booths, information sessions, and live chats.
Employer Profiles: Encourage employers to create detailed profiles with company information, job listings, and videos introducing company culture. (Example: Queen Mary University of London's "Virtual Careers Fair [invalid URL removed]" offers a glimpse into their platform layout).
Search Functionality: Implement a search function that allows students to filter employers by industry, job type, or location.
Facilitating Meaningful Interactions
It’s not enough for the fair to simply be there and students to be present; a crucial part of the puzzle is ensuring that the interactions between students and employers or industry experts are meaningful. In order to do this, careers professionals need to put the right methods of communication in place to facilitate successful interactions, including:
Live Chat and Video Conferencing: Real-time interaction with employers through video chats, live Q&A sessions, or group discussions.
Interactive Booths: Breakout rooms or dedicated chat functionalities within employer booths for focused conversations.
Social Media Integration: Promote the event and facilitate student interaction through dedicated event hashtags on social media platforms.
Post-Event Engagement
After your virtual careers fair has taken place, to ensure attendees get the most out of the experience, it’s also important to engage them afterwards. A couple of ways to do this could include:
Follow-up Communication: Send post-event emails to students with links to employer resources, recordings of presentations, and job application deadlines.
Feedback Surveys: Gather student feedback to improve future virtual events. Encourage students to connect with employers on LinkedIn or other professional networking platforms.
Going Beyond the Basics
While these tips will help you to set up your virtual careers fair, there are other strategies you can pursue that can make your event innovative and impactful. You might consider the following:
Build in Interactive Elements:
Gamification: Incorporate game mechanics like scavenger hunts, trivia quizzes, or leaderboards to make exploring booths and interacting with employers more engaging. Winners could receive virtual swag or priority access to recruiters.
Live Q&A sessions with alumni: Invite successful alumni from various industries to host live Q&A sessions. This can give students insights into specific career paths and company cultures.
Virtual reality (VR) booths: While VR technology might not be accessible to everyone, consider incorporating a limited number of VR experiences for select companies. This could showcase their work environment or products in a unique way.
Focus on Career Development:
Pre-fair workshops: Host workshops before the fair to help students with resume writing, interview skills, and navigating virtual platforms.
Career personality assessments: Offer online assessments that help students identify their strengths and interests, then match them with relevant companies and positions at the fair.
Mock interview rooms: Set up rooms with volunteer interviewers for students to practice their interview skills before meeting with employers.
Support Networking and Community Building:
Speed mentoring sessions: Organise short, focused video chats with industry professionals where students can get career advice.
Student chat rooms: Create chat rooms for students to connect with each other based on interests, majors, or career goals. This can foster peer-to-peer learning and networking.
Social media integration: Encourage social media engagement by creating a dedicated hashtag for the fair and running contests where students share their experiences.
Data and Follow Up:
Track student interactions: Use the platform's analytics to track student engagement with different booths and presentations. This data can be used to personalise future events and measure success.
Post-fair surveys: Send surveys to students after the fair to gather feedback about their experience and identify areas for improvement.
Connect students with recruiters: After the fair, facilitate introductions between students and recruiters based on their expressed interests and qualifications
The Future of Graduate Employability
Virtual careers fairs have become a cornerstone of employability provision in the HE sector. By offering them, services can reach students and employers from across the globe and create opportunities to enhance graduate outcomes.
The steps outlined in this article serve as a basic framework for developing and delivering your online careers fair, in addition to some ways you can innovate your provision. By implementing these strategies, CES professionals can ensure a dynamic and engaging virtual careers fair experience for your students. The key overall is to understand and then cater to student needs, create an interactive platform, and facilitate meaningful connections with employers. By prioritising these elements, virtual careers fairs can effectively bridge the gap between students and their future careers.
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