It’s that time of year where smart recruiters are teeing up to net top student talent at careers fairs. Careers fairs are an excellent opportunity to secure qualified candidates, so it’s important to have an effective strategy in place.

What’s your goal?

Before investing time, money, and energy into planning and assigning resources for a careers fair, determine the best events to suit your hiring requirements and the best candidates that will be worth your investment.

Industry-specific careers fairs are excellent opportunities to boost your employer brand (for example, if you are in the tech or hospitality industries). Offer entry-level, vacation, and internship opportunities to interested potential candidates.

Choose your best brand ambassadors

We’ve stressed the importance of choosing only your most qualified and enthusiastic brand ambassadors to represent you, as they are the ones who will be making an impression on lots of people. In particular, choose people with recruiters and hiring managers who are invested in finding the right people and are aligned with your overall brand.

Recruiters are the best people to converse with candidates, obtain contact details and resumes, and know how to coordinate interviews. In fact, hiring managers can potentially screen candidates onsite, describe the types of roles and responsibilities available, and answer questions.

Also consider bringing employees who are alumni from the same educational institution–a great way to initiate conversation and form an instant connection. Students can also relate to these employees more easily and visualise themselves in the organisation.

Coordinate and book

Contact event organisers, pay relevant fees and provide information about your organisation. (Be prepared with marketing materials, such as your logo for booths, and information about position openings.)

Prepare materials

Don’t come to a careers fair empty handed! Order marketing materials and work with designers to create an attractive booth with:

• banners
• pictures of your company
• brochures
• electronic media to play on screen (if this is available to you)
• memorable, useful, branded promotional giveaways (e.g. USBs, branded goodie bags)
• name tags for your brand ambassador attendees
• business cards.  

Ensure your website and promotional materials are up to date. The last thing you want is to direct great talent to an outdated, hard-to-navigate website!

If you choose to giveaway promotional materials, instead of pens and stickers, think outside the box and make it memorable and useful. What’s something that represents your brand or company culture?

Prepare to engage

It’s important to prepare questions to engage candidates in advance. You only have a short amount of time with each candidate, so ask questions to determine quickly if they have minimum requirements for the roles you are looking to recruit for.

Engage them by asking about their interests and determine if they have experience with or recognise your brand.

Here are some example questions:

• What do you know about [our organisation]?
• Do you have experience with [software]?  
• What’s your area of expertise/interest?
• What would you like to learn more about?

Advertise and promote

In the weeks leading up to your event, promote your current opportunities and your participation in the event on your website and through your social media channels. If you’re participating in a closed event, you might not be able to invite people, but you can still let attendees know where to look for you!

Post pictures while you’re at the event on your social channels to let people know you’re there.

On the day

Arrive early to set up your booth with pictures, materials and any visual multimedia or laptops you will be using.

Engage with as many people as possible using the questions you prepared earlier. (You might find many excellent potential candidates!) Try to keep conversations brief, structured and engaging; exchange important information quickly and effectively. Long queues are great to show you are desirable, but it may make you lose out on connecting with valuable talent.

Take notes and record important information! A great way to do this is by having a well-thought-out expression of interest form (electronic is best if you have the resources). That way you can quickly capture the most important information.

Ask people how they heard about your presence at the fair, or if they came across you by chance. This can help you direct your promotional strategy for future careers fairs.

It can be difficult to remember great potential candidates unless you take notes when speaking with them. In particular, have a way to capture CVs and contact details.

If you have suitable positions advertised on your careers page, encourage desirable candidates to apply. When asked to answer the question “where did you hear about this opportunity?” Prompt them to select “careers fair” from the drop-down menu.

Let interested students know what will happen next and when they can expect to hear back.

You must be able to answer candidates’ questions; so be armed with important and interesting information about your organisation, teams, culture, people, benefits, future plans, and what positions are currently available.

After the event

The work doesn’t stop when the event is over! Get in touch with people you connected with. The sooner the better, as the more likely it will be that they’ll remember you.

Make sure you reply promptly to people who asked questions you couldn’t answer on the day.

Take the next steps. Add interested applicants to your talent pool emailing list. Thank applicants who aren’t suitable for their interest, and let them know you will reach out to them. Or, provide them with a way to stay up to date and keep an eye out with your upcoming opportunities.

Reach out to great candidates if they are suitable for one of your current roles and invite them to start the screening and interview process. Assess their skills and start interviewing.

Have a debrief with your team who attended to gain a general overview, successes, and areas to improve next time.

Lastly, measure your ROI. How many people expressed interest? Out of this number, how many qualified people did you engage with? How many did you bring in for interviews, and hire? Measure your overall time to hire. Compare this with your other recruitment strategies.

Careers fairs are an excellent opportunity to both discover and engage with sought-after talent, and build your brand! While these events are a cost and time investment, with the proper planning, materials, and brand ambassadors, you’ll receive great ROI.

Have you achieved success at a careers fair? What kind of interesting materials did you bring and how did you engage candidates? How did it compare to your other recruiting methods? Let us know in the comments.

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