The Top 5 Tactics Employers Should Employ at Recruitment Job Fairs

Planning for job fair recruitment drive? Well, they are fun and exciting. They are more like social activity wherein, active job seekers or fresh university graduates looking for jobs have a series of short conversations with potential employers or recruiters to determine which of them suits their qualification or interest.

For the employers, it is a great platform to showcase their brand to their prospective employees and make a strong case to undertake spot hiring for those top candidates who are fit for the current open job positions. However, there is a great deal of planning that goes into making job fair recruitment a success. To begin with, job fairs are generally a crowded fiesta — jam-packed with recruiters and job seekers, wherein, everyone wants to get noticed and heard.

So, let us check out the 5 top tactics employers can use while doing job fair recruitment.

1. Set goals

First of all,it is pertinent to set a goal before you start planning for job events. Now, a goal for a job fair should be much more than about promotional strategy and booth set up, it should mainly be about which job fairs to attend and which ones to not. Ask yourself and your team the following questions:

• What kind of candidates do you wish to target at the job fair? Is diversity something you want to explore? Are you looking for candidates with particular expertise or skill or qualification?
• How many job seekers do you hope to speak to? How much percentage of those do you think would make it to the next step in your recruitment process?
• What is the goal of the organization? Is it about filling a particular number of positions? Or, is it about gaining an edge over competitors? Or, is it simply to create more brand awareness?

A proper goal will help you chart out a proper trajectory for the job fair recruitment. The answers to the aforementioned questions can help you plan a cohesive job fair strategy that can attract the most candidates, resulting in an efficient hiring process. Moreover, a proper goal will help you do a proper assessment of your performance in the online job fair events and will determine your future course of action.

2. Plan booth set up

After you’ve decided to take part in the job fair, the next most important factor is, planning your stall set up. To do so, the first step would be to find out about the size and specifications allotted to your booth space and all the materials provided by the organizers. Some venues only provide the booth and you need to bring along your own marketing materials to decorate it. While some other organizers may provide you with tables and chairs along with the booth but nothing more. You will have to manage the rest on your own.

Therefore, check with the organizers while planning your booth set up. This will ensure you make your presence felt in the fair.

Also, remember that the fair would be crowded. So think differently and plan different activities, or plan your booth in a way that it stands out from the rest and attracts positive attention from the visitors.

3. Plan a contest

Gamification can help to attract top talent at the job fair. After all, everyone likes a good game or a contest, especially in a formal environment such as a job fair, wherein, attendees and applicants are expected to be formal and maintain strict professionalism. Hosting a good contest is an innovative method of lighting up or relaxing the mood of the attendees and drawing the attention of the job seekers towards your stall.

Encourage the candidates to submit their resume or fill up your application form to gain entry to the main draw of the contest. But ensure that the winnings or freebies are the ones that people want. This will boost participation among a good number of job seekers. A good contest will pull the visitors into your stall, not once but many times during the day, to discover what they’ve won and what are their chances of winning more freebies. This boosts engagement levels at your stall and will allow you to create an extensive talent pool at the job fair.

4. Advertise your booth

As a hiring entity, you may already have access to a large pool of job seekers enrolled with your organization. They would, in turn, have a broader social circle with whom they connect, which may include top talent as well.

Advertise and announce it to your large pool of candidates that you will be taking part in the job fair with specific and relevant information like the date, venue, stall number and the location (along with an exhibition map, maybe) of the booth. Advertise it on different social media platforms so that your enrolled candidates and the larger social circle get to know about your presence at the job fair. This gets your candidates engaged and will draw traction towards your booth during the event.

Plan something special for active job seekers who visit your booth. And make it exclusive by dropping hints to your candidates about the special benefits that you have on offer on that day. This will generate more curiosity and eagerness among the job seekers to visit your stall during the fair. Offer exclusive gifts to those who do visit your stall during the event. This will garner even more excitement and will draw more audience to your stall.

5. Plan your questions

Plan your probing questions about what you will be asking the job seekers. At the fair, you will have no time to prepare for your questions. It will be a very crowded place and you would want to meet with as many job seekers as possible.

If you do not keep your questions handy, you will miss out on asking for some of the most important information from the job seeker. You will end up missing out on a worthy chance of getting credible information from candidates and, eventually, miss out on the top candidates that you are seeking. Therefore, do the following:

• Prepare job questions. It will help you understand whether the candidate has the minimum required qualification for open job positions.
• Prepare career-specific and goal-oriented questions. These will help you learn about the career objectives of the individual and whether they are a culture fit for your organization.

Job fairs for recruitment can yield the best results when planned and executed flawlessly. They are a great resource for recruiters to build their talent pool. For employers, it is a great opportunity to find the right future full-time employee(s) for their organization. Hence, the more tactful you are in your approach, the better candidates you can attract to your organization.