Best Virtual Career Fair Platforms - 2023
The best virtual event platforms for recruiting along with our in depth advice
COVID-19 has changed the way companies hire, perhaps permanently. Many companies have converted their in-person recruitment efforts to virtual events, including career fairs. Take a look at the following stats:
- Under normal circumstances, virtual career fairs have an average participation rate of 50%, but this figure has increased to as high as 90% since COVID-19.
- 45% of employers are using virtual hiring events more since the onset of the pandemic.
- Due to the pandemic, experts predict that 80% of recruiting will remain virtual for the foreseeable future.
Because of such shift, virtual career fair platforms have become indispensable to talent acquisition teams. Not only are these platforms a great way for companies to continue hiring during COVID-19, but they also expedite the hiring process while keeping recruitment costs low.
In this guide, we’ll dive into the best online career fair platforms, along with best practices for running a virtual career fair, pitfalls, and much more.
Best Virtual Career Fair Platforms
When choosing the best virtual career fair platforms, we’ve looked for ones that offer optimum user experience, candidate management and analytics, customization, and dedicated customer support. We sat through dozens of demos, conducted our own tests, listened to user feedback, and spoke to several industry experts before finalizing our recommendations.
- User experience: Ease of use is vital for any virtual career fair platform; recruiters should be able to effortlessly access candidate information, review resumes, and schedule interviews while candidates navigate the virtual career fair, communicate with recruiters, and explore relevant booths — using their preferred devices with ease.
- Customization: We shortlisted platforms that enable you to showcase your company's branding in your hiring events. This includes the ability to feature your company logo and brand colors at events as well as customize exhibit layouts, messaging, and more.
- Candidate management and analytics: We looked for platforms that allow you to track candidate attendance, their interactions with exhibitors, their interest in specific jobs, as well as score leads based on how they’ve engaged with your event, and gain insights on the performance of your event.
- Dedicated customer support: There are a lot of moving parts and people involved in a virtual career event, and if it is your first one, you will need all the help you can get. That is why we chose platforms that offer dedicated support to tackle any technical challenges. They're also there to assist you every step of the way, from designing and launching your first virtual career fair to troubleshooting issues as they come up.
For more details on our HR software vetting methods, check out this article.
Brazen
Brazen is an easy-to-use virtual career fairs platform. Fortune 500 companies & top universities rely on Brazen to offer a great candidate experience with events that include live presentations, 1:1 video, audio or text chats, and much more.
PROS
- Their customer support is great, especially the chat support. When it comes to creating online events, their team would give you a step-by-step walkthrough of the entire process. Every month, their team arranges a monthly call between their customers and their appointed account representative to make sure everything is working fine. Their response time for customer queries is also fairly quick and you will usually hear back from them within the same day.
- Brazen makes networking easier. There are multiple networking booths for events where attendees can talk to employers via text, voice, or chat. Attendees can also easily switch between different booths.
- Before, after, and during each event, you’re provided with detailed analytics and data about signups, candidates, attendance, and other such metrics.
- Their team comes up with updates on a frequent basis and not only asks for client feedback but also takes end-user feedback into mind when rolling out new features.
- Their customer support is great, especially the chat support. When it comes to creating online events, their team would give you a step-by-step walkthrough of the entire process. Every month, their team arranges a monthly call between their customers and their appointed account representative to make sure everything is working fine. Their response time for customer queries is also fairly quick and you will usually hear back from them within the same day.
- Brazen makes networking easier. There are multiple networking booths for events where attendees can talk to employers via text, voice, or chat. Attendees can also easily switch between different booths.
- Before, after, and during each event, you’re provided with detailed analytics and data about signups, candidates, attendance, and other such metrics.
- Their team comes up with updates on a frequent basis and not only asks for client feedback but also takes end-user feedback into mind when rolling out new features.
CONS
- Limited customizations: event emails are auto-generated which may restrict brand expression.
- Built-in audio and video tools are less stable compared to other popular video conferencing tools, with occasional bugs.
- The initial setup requires trial and error to optimize virtual events.
- Lack of transparent pricing and no self-signup free trials are available currently.
- Customizations are limited. For instance, emails for the events are system automated and that can limit you from displaying your voice and brand.
- Compared to other popular video conferencing tools, Brazen’s built-in audio and video tool is not as stable and there can be occasional bugs.
- Initial setup can be a little confusing and it takes some trial and error to figure out a structure that helps you make the most out of your virtual events.
- The pricing of the platform isn’t transparent and self-signup free trials aren’t available at this time.
Brazen has been a leader in the virtual career fair world for nearly a decade. In as little as 15 minutes, you can create an event and start marketing to job seekers.
Brazen’s platform has many thoughtful features that you’d expect to make it easy for job seekers to find the right “booth” within a career fair and engage with recruiters via text or video. On the employer side, there are many features to help recruiting teams efficiently engage with and vet job seekers including pre-written responses to common questions, and the ability to chat with multiple candidates at once.
CVS Health, Lincoln Financial Group, and Temple University are some of Brazen's customers.
Brazen’s pricing is undisclosed. You need to fill out their form to get a custom quote.
Best For
Brazen is best suited for large teams, universities, and companies with frequent and high-volume hiring needs.
Premier Virtual
Premier Virtual’s virtual recruitment platform is easy to use and quick to set up. You can use it to organize virtual and hybrid job fairs with customizable lobbies and booths. It also comes with job board integrations, an interview scheduler, and real-time event analytics.
PROS
- According to users, Premier Virtual's support team is extremely helpful and professional.
- Customers especially like the flexibility that the product provides. You can easily set up different booths and customize them to reflect your brand, chat 1:1 with attendees, and make changes in real-time during the event.
- Premier Virtual's analytics dashboard provides users with valuable real-time feedback on how their booth is performing, the number of attendees, interactions, resumes received, and more.
CONS
- The platform does not allow employers to filter attendees and job seekers by parameters like skills, current role, and location.
- According to a few users, the user interface can be confusing to navigate and could use some improvement.
Premier Virtual's job fair solution is easy to set up, and mimics the look and feel of a live in-person career fair. Once onboarded as a customer, you will be assigned a dedicated Client Success Manager to walk you through the virtual event setup. You can customize your registration landing page, lobby, and booth with your branding, add details about your organization and the job fair and ask registrants questions to qualify them.
On the day of the event, attendees can log in online, enter the lobby a.k.a the job fair, enter each organization's virtual booth, view job postings, and apply for open roles. Premier Virtual also allows you to track analytics like the number of attendees, booth visits, chats, and resumes submitted in real-time and via downloadable reports sent to you after the event.
Virginia Career Works, Catalyst Career Group, U.S Army, MassHire, FAU, Comfort Systems, CareerSource FL, and Nashville Technology Council
Premier Virtual charges $2,500-$5,750 per event and around $15,500 for an annual license. Enterprise customers can request a custom quote. They also offer a free 30-day trial.
Best For
Premier Virtual is best-suited for remote and hybrid businesses that frequently host virtual career fairs and online hiring events.
VidCruiter
VidCruiter is very efficient and user-friendly. Not only do you get a dedicated account manager and unlimited training, but you also get access to some compelling features like virtual career fairs.
PROS
- VidCruiter is scalable and customizable — users pay for what they need and can purchase more features as they grow.
- Virtual events reach massive audiences with relatively little effort.
- Robust pre-recorded and live video interviewing with advanced automation.
- Browser-based, so it works across devices without installing apps.
- Available for recruiters in eight languages and supports job seekers in dozens more.
- 24/7 live agent support, assigned account manager, and on-demand training.
- Scalable and customizable — users pay for what they need and can purchase more features as they grow.
- Robust pre-recorded and live video interviewing with advanced automation.
- Browser-based, so it works across devices without installing apps.
- Available for recruiters in eight languages and supports job seekers in dozens more.
- 24/7 live agent support, assigned account manager, and on-demand training.
CONS
- Extensive features and customization require a time-consuming implementation process.
- The platform is geared towards teams with over 100 hires annually, making it less suitable for smaller hiring volumes.
- No available free or trial version.
- Pricing information is not disclosed upfront.
- Because the product is feature-rich and highly customizable, the implementation phase can be time-consuming.
- Advanced search and technical skills testing features within the assessment module leave room for improvement.
- No free or trial version.
- Undisclosed pricing.
VidCruiter has been a leader in the talent acquisition technology space for many years. The platform now offers a virtual career fair tool for companies that want to transcend candidates' busy schedules and geographic constraints.
The career fair platform is a great way for companies to attract and vet numerous candidates all at once while still providing a great experience for potential employees. Talent acquisition teams can use the platform to build landing pages to promote the event and then schedule interested applicants with recruiters or asynchronous video interviews.
VidCruiter first caught our eye when we were a brand new company, so we tested and retested many of the software’s features. We find there’s a common theme of VidCruiter offerings: customizable software backed by dedicated customer support.
Our research shows that businesses with high-volume hiring who are looking to scale globally make the most out of this tool.
100,000+ TAs and recruiters at companies like Global Affairs Canada, Paymentsense, and Blue Cross.
VidCruiter doesn’t publicize their pricing and plans. You need to get on a demo with them for more details.
Best For
VidCruiter is best suited for organizations with strong company cultures, planning to hire at least 100 employees annually, and in need of a platform that excels in virtual environments. The platform also has a proven track record of serving government, education, and healthcare orgs.
Paradox
Paradox is mobile-first and lets users create virtual events within minutes. The AI acts as a sound event specialist that can handle recruitment fairs at scale, from event registrations to sending reminders and introducing job seekers to live recruiters.
PROS
- Reduces a considerable amount of time for recruiters with automation.
- The AI is programmed to respond to candidates in a way that feels personal.
- Available in over 30 languages for users and over 100 for job seekers.
- Their implementation and customer service is very efficient and accessible. You will not only get a Customer Success Manager to help you with every step during your implementation phase but your issues will also likely be resolved within the same day. Unlike many vendors, you can contact their support team via phone and explain your issue in real-time.
- It’s very time-saving and cuts down on back-and-forth communication between job candidates and recruiters. As Derek B, Head of Recruitment at a large-sized enterprise puts it, “Olivia helped us shave our response time from 7 days to under 24 hours. This time saving ensured that the applicants we chose to interview were the best of the bunch.”
- Olivia, their AI chatbot is programmed to respond to candidates in a way that feels personal, as if a real person is responding. What’s even better is that despite complete automation, you can see all chats and manually override them if need be.
CONS
- At times it requires human involvement to deliver nuanced answers in conversations.
- The resolution to an issue occasionally isn’t thoroughly tested before sending it to customers.
- Doesn’t provide transparent pricing. No free trial.
- Although you can get some data and feedback about your company and its processes, analytics is not very robust in Paradox. If you’re looking for advanced features that let you slice and dice your data in various ways, you’ll have to look for other applications.
- Their AI assistant is intelligent and has a human touch but at the end of the day, Olivia is still AI. At times when you want nuanced answers in conversations, you’ll have to manually operate the chat.
Paradox has built a virtual recruiting platform that allows companies to quickly create, market, and run hiring events. Olivia, the platform’s AI assistant, can take registrations, remind attendees about the upcoming conversation, and help coordinate it while the event runs. We appreciate that the software has a dedicated support team to help out in the implementation process and that the workflow can be customized the way we want.
Accessing the platform is quite simple, both as an administrator and an employee. We particularly like how Paradox focuses on mobile users to make its UI eye-catching and easy to navigate. As virtual hiring events require a heavy workload for the recruitment team, assistance from Olivia can free up recruiters’ time from administrative tasks. The AI can conduct pre-screens and answer candidate questions while they wait to talk to a recruiter.
That being said, the key reason we picked Paradox as one of the top virtual career fair platforms for large businesses is that she does all of these tasks in a timely and human-like manner. Further, Olivia can answer questions in over 100 languages, which can be a huge plus for teams hiring globally to deliver a good candidate experience. Lastly, businesses can run larger events as the platform has no limits on seats or users.
Houston Methodist, Regis Corporation, and McDonald's are some of Paradox’s customers.
Paradox doesn’t disclose its pricing, so you need to book a demo with them for a custom quote.
Best For
Paradox is most suitable for large enterprises and global teams with extensive applicant volumes as a regular part of their operations.
eightfold
Eightfold helps you cast a wider net with online events and virtual career fairs. With the help of its powerful AI, it’s also able to identify suitable candidates from its talent pool that you can later invite to your virtual events.
PROS
- Eightfold uses AI to analyze job postings and identify best-fit candidates based on skills and potential.
- Candidate searches can be filtered by experience level or salary range to match hiring criteria.
- Diversity hiring is encouraged with anonymous screening (profile masking).
- Tailored training and development opportunities enhance employee experience.
- Built-in CRM for managing HR data on candidates and employees.
- Eightfold uses AI technology to analyze your job postings and find the best fitting candidates. It can also rank those candidates based on their skills, experience and potential.
- You can filter candidate searches by experience level or salary range so that you only see candidates that fit your hiring criteria.
- The platform encourages diversity hiring and enables you to eliminate hiring bias through anonymous screening, aka profile masking
- It improves overall employee experience by providing tailored training and development opportunities based on their skill sets and interests.
- It has a built-in CRM to store and manage HR data about potential candidates, current employees, and previous employees.
CONS
- No option for leaving notes on candidate profiles within the system.
- Lacks a mobile app for hiring managers and recruiters to manage the pipeline and hiring process.
- Limited to searching within its own candidate database.
- Pricing is not transparent, no free trial is available.
- There isn’t a way for hiring managers and recruiters to leave notes on candidates profiles within the system which is rather inconvenient.
- Eightfold has a mobile app that employees can access for skills development but doesn’t currently have one for hiring managers and recruiters to manage their pipeline and perform other actions relating to the hiring process.
- Several users reported that the tool does not search for candidates outside its database.
- The platform’s pricing isn’t transparent and there is no free trial at this time.
Eightfold's Virtual Event Recruiting platform allows you to create online events that connect with a diverse pool of job-seekers. Built with artificial intelligence, the platform helps you invite candidates from an uploaded resume book or from your own Talent Network. Eightfold also helps match companies with candidates based on their skills, and encourages them to attend specific events or apply for a job. Recruiters can meet candidates as a group or 1:1, conduct assessments, and select candidates for follow-up.
Eightfold’s customers include Conagra Brands, LG, and Tata Communications.
Eightfold's pricing is determined on a case-by-case basis. Please contact their Sales team to discuss your specific needs.
Best For
Larger companies wanting to hire more than 100 candidates per year through their virtual career fair efforts.
vFairs
With vFairs, you can hold virtual career fairs in a 3D setting. Showcase your employer brand, interact with candidates, and boost engagement using fun gamification elements—all on one platform.
PROS
- You can host large-scale 3D virtual events with customizable aspects.
- There’s a branded event mobile app for attendee check-in, webinars, and networking.
- Dedicated hands-on support from onboarding to event completion is available.
- vFairs allows you to host large-scale events virtually in 3d. You can customize lots of aspects, from your event venue, booths, and marketing collateral, down to animated avatars that represent your team.
- You get branded event mobile app that you can use for attendee check-in, webinar attending, networking, and more
- The team at vFairs is quite hands-on from the moment you sign up until after your event ends. They’ll assist you with onboarding, provide you with product training and guide you in designing and launching your events.
CONS
- Pricing is not publicly disclosed and is only shared in demos.
- There’s a learning curve because it’s a feature-rich platform, but dedicated customer success managers provide assistance.
- Attendees are not required to confirm email addresses, leading to potential issues.
- vFairs pricing isn’t publicly disclosed, and you’d have to schedule a demo to find out much it costs for your event size and needs. Free trials are also not available at this time.
- As with many feature-rich products, it takes quite some time to get the hang of using vFairs, but the good news is that vFairs assigns customers dedicated customer success managers that are there to help.
- vFairs doesn't request that attendees confirm their email addresses after they register, which can create issues with attendees using email addresses that aren’t theirs.
vFairs is a pretty versatile events management platform. You can host different types of events like 3D virtual, in-person, or hybrid events, including career fairs. The 3D virtual events are great! You can customize everything from the event venue and booths to your team's animated avatars. It really gives you a branded experience.
Another cool feature is the Job Board module, which lets you promote job openings, customize the application form, review resumes, shortlist candidates, and even conduct live video interviews.
One more plus is the branded event mobile app. It's super handy for attendee check-in, joining webinars, networking, and more.
The team at vFairs is also really hands-on in helping users with onboarding and product training and guiding them through designing and launching events.
The only downside is that their pricing isn't public, so you'll have to schedule a demo to get the costs based on your event size and needs. Unfortunately, they don't offer free trials either.
vFairs caters to various industries, with a strong presence in non-profits, education, and events services. Notable clients include Water Unite, Vets Now, and FAIR Institute.
vFairs' pricing is customized to your event. Contact their sales team for a quote.
Best For
vFairs' customer base is primarily made up of small and medium-sized businesses in the United States and the United Kingdom, although they also serve companies of various sizes and industries.
Live Recruit
Live Recruit is a standout choice with its virtual recruitment event platform, promoting hiring events to potential candidates at a wallet-friendly price compared to competitors. They also ace engagement and attendance with smart omnichannel marketing.
PROS
- Lower base price (plans from $349/month) compared to competitors.
- Supports omnichannel marketing for event promotion (email, social, search engine, live calls, direct mail).
- Easy-to-use Event Builder for quick setup (under 6 minutes).
- Integrated video chat with candidates on the platform.
- The base price is lower (plans start at $349/month for unlimited events) than the vast majority of competitor platforms.
- Live Recruit isn't just a recruitment event solution, it offers omnichannel marketing via email marketing, paid social, search engine marketing, live calls, direct mail, etc. to promote your events.
- The Event Builder feature is very easy to use, as it allows non-tech users to build events in under 6 minutes by using page templates where you just need to fill data in.
- Unlike some other similar solutions, Live Recruit allows you to video chat with candidates on the platform without relying on third-party integrations.
CONS
- The Starter and Professional plans lack ATS integrations, requiring manual data export.
- Additional fees need to be paid for extra recruiter seats, which can add up for companies with multiple recruiters.
- There isn’t a knowledge base for self-service, leaving customers to rely solely on contacting support for assistance.
- The starter and professional plan do not offer ATS integrations. This means you'll have to use the manual approach to export data to your preferred ATS.
- Live Recruit offers 1 to 3 recruiter seats out-the-box. If you want more you have to pay for additional permissions per event. So for companies with several recruiters, the costs will add up.
- The solution doesn't offer a support knowledge base to further simplify user navigation. If you need help finding anything you'd have to contact support.
Live Recruit is a virtual hiring event platform that provides an easy-to-use landing page builder. Their landing page template utilizes custom fields that you'd just need to fill out. Then, you can upload your custom branding image and start sourcing. With this tool, most organizations build their event registration pages in under 6 minutes.
The Live Recruit team also helps out by promoting your virtual hiring efforts through digital ads, live calls, email, etc. You can engage with candidates through chat, call, video, or text.
Once they’ve left some info, you can manage candidate profiles and take next steps like rating them, taking notes, and connecting candidates to hiring managers.
Live Recruit provides three pricing plans:
- Starter: $349/month with 1 recruiter seat ($295 with annual subscription).
- Professional: $899/month with 3 recruiter seats ($765 with annual subscription).
- Enterprise: Custom pricing, 3 recruiter seats, and additional features.
Best For
Live Recruit offers scalable plans and wallet-friendly pricing, making it suitable for in-house recruiters, recruitment firms, and temporary staffing agencies in the United States. The platform can handle virtual hiring events with 5 or 5000 candidate participants.
Communique
Communique's solution is quite flexible; you can customize the environment for your virtual career fairs and make it look like the actual college campus. You can also customize several branding elements and have your event reflect your company’s corporate identity.
PROS
- When creating events, you'll have the option to choose from existing templates or design a fully custom virtual career fair environment with your brand, corporate colors, and people.
- You can maximize your candidate reach with Communique as it can be accessed from any location, on any modern browser or mobile device.
- The team at Communique is quite hands-on. They’ll assist you with product implementation, and guide you in designing and launching your first event.
- When creating events, you'll have the option to choose from existing templates or design a fully custom virtual career fair environment with your brand, corporate colors, and people.
- You can maximize your candidate reach with Communique as it can be accessed from any location, on any modern browser or mobile device.
- The team at Communique is quite hands-on. They’ll assist you with product implementation, and guide you in designing and launching your first event.
CONS
- Communique’s UI looks a little outdated and isn’t not the easiest to navigate, especially for new users.
- The platform doesn’t offer free trial and pricing isn’t publically shared. You’ll need to contact their Sales’ team for a quote.
- Third-party integrations are quite limited at this time, with very little options to connect HR software solutions.
- Communique’s UI looks a little outdated and isn’t not the easiest to navigate, especially for new users.
- The platform doesn’t offer free trial and pricing isn’t publically shared. You’ll need to contact their Sales’ team for a quote.
- Third-party integrations are quite limited at this time, with very little options to connect HR software solutions.
Communique’s virtual career fairs solution aims to closely emulate in-person recruiting events, translating exhibit halls, booths, presentations, and more into a flexible 3D environment that reflects your branding. For maximum reach, allows candidates to join events from any location, through any computer or mobile device. Furthermore, recruiters and candidates can communicate with one another over chat or video interviews, which can be scheduled and conducted using Communique’s built-in scheduling and video conferencing tools.
Communique is used by companies all over the world. Some of the biggest names on their client list are Disney, GE, Mastercard, Sony, EY, and Salesforce.
The pricing of Communique’s solutions isn’t disclosed upfront. Contact their Sales team to get a quote.
Best For
Communique can be used by companies of all sizes, but do note that the majority of their customers are growing companies and enterprises.
GR8 People
With GR8 People, you can create, manage and measure the effectiveness of your virtual recruiting events. The platform comes with a built-in talent CRMs to help you manage leads and turn them into hires using automated campaigns and screening processes.
PROS
- According to users, Gr8 People’s support team is quite responsive and is known to resolve issues quickly.
- The GR8 People app makes the hiring process easier by automating tasks like sending email notifications and changing hiring statuses.
- The GR8 People application process is easy to navigate once you learn how it works. Candidates love how quickly they can apply for jobs, and hiring managers appreciate how fast it is to move candidates to the next step and keep track of where they are in the process.
CONS
- The system has restrictions on sorting certain lists. For example, it would be nice if companies could sort their requisitions by a number of different criteria, such as hiring manager's name and department.
- While the tool's landing page feature is great, users still wish there were more customization options. For example, they would like to be able to change text and pictures. The system does not allow for much customization when working through different workflows either.
- It's easy to integrate with other products, but it would be great if they allowed integration with email. This would be useful for users who want to submit forms and information directly from Gmail accounts, or any other email provider.
- There’s no free tier for job posting or applicant management – if you want to use the platform, you’ll need to pay for all features one way or another.
GR8 People comes with a built-in CRM, which makes it easy to pre-screen event attendees, schedule events and communications, and track the leads throughout the sales cycle. The CRM also streamlines the process of turning attendees into engaged leads, who then become hires. Their team even helps you set up an email and landing page for your virtual event so you can start promoting it in 48 hours or less.
Finally, the tool provides you with detailed metrics, so you can see which of your campaigns is working out and which one is responsible for most RSPVs.
GR8 People’s customer list includes names like John Hopkins Medicine, Informatica, T.Rowe Price, Talbots, Teradata, and more.
GR8 People doesn’t have fixed pricing plans. You can contact their sales team for a demo, as well as custom pricing details.
Best For
GR8 People is suitable for growing businesses that want an all-in-one recruiting platform to generate, nurture, and track their hiring leads. It's also useful for making sure that all applicants go through the same steps in the hiring process so there aren't any inconsistencies between candidates' experiences with your company.
Hopin
Hopin’s unified event management platform helps you plan, market and execute your career events. You can also follow-up with attendees after the event within Hopin without needing to switch to another platform.
PROS
- With Hopin Events, you can get the support of real event professionals who will help you every step of the way to make your virtual event a success.
- Your attendees don’t need to create an account, they can just log in using a magic link when invited to an event.
- The platform provides many integrations, which make it easy to manage and enhance your events. The platform also offers an integration option for professional studios like StreamYard to build their own studio on the Hopin platform.
CONS
- It would be great if Hopin offered some kind of "backstage" area where participants can prepare for their sessions without being in front of an audience. This would allow them time to set up their tools and get comfortable without being watched by others who are waiting for their turn to present.
- If you want more control over when participants are allowed to enter the event, then Hopin might not be the best option for you. You also cannot see who is attending the meeting and who is not.
- The ticket registration system is a three-step authentication process that can be taxing, especially for first-time users.
Hopin acts as a one stop shop for hosting virtual events, job fairs and career fairs. This virtual event platform lets you host 100,000 person live events or even a small community. To help you make your virtual career fair and events eye-catching and completely branded, the platform also lets you build and customize your landing page. You can add aspects like colors, brand logo, unique background, and more.
The best part about Hopin is that it's not just used for hosting events but also allows you to create an online community where attendees can connect with group video networking and 1:1s.
Hopin serves acclaimed businesses like Slack, TechCrunch, Twitch, The Atlantic, Workato, Glassdoor, United Nations, and more.
Hopin provides a custom plan for customizable event length and fully customizable event interface, among other advanced features. It also offers a free plan that allows you to host unlimited events with up to 100 registrations/event, up to 2 hours in event length, and provides email/chat support.
Best For
Hopin is suitable for event organizers and businesses of all sizes that want to create and host virtual events, as well as individuals and organizations that want to attend virtual events. The platform is also best for educational institutions and non-profit organizations that want to engage with students and donors remotely.
Use Cases of virtual career fair platforms
Virtual career fairs are designed to allow job seekers to engage with companies in a very similar way to how a typical career fair would work. Employees can chat in small groups or 1:1 with employees from a given company. This gives them a deeper understanding of an organization, and allows the company to get a better idea of that person’s fit for a given role.
Quick pro tip: leverage a gifting platform like Caroo to ensure people show up to events and have a great experience with your brand.
Virtual career fairs can be used by both companies who are trying to engage talent for their own hiring needs, as well as organizations who run career fairs across many different employers. There are a few main use cases for companies:
- Companies recruiting for their company: Event based recruiting is a great strategy for companies to attract and engage job seekers, especially when you are hiring in volume for specific roles. Virtual career fairs are a great way to run events while we are worried about social distancing, or really anytime given how easy they are to setup. Invite the candidates in your pipeline to an event, chat with them 1:1 for a few minutes each, and figure out which ones you want to bring into the next phase of interviews.
- Employment agencies hosting job fairs: Recruiting firms that are looking to source and engage large populations of job seekers can use online career fairs to quickly vet large groups of talent with a small number of recruiters. Similar to in person event recruiting that may revolve around a happy hour, online recruiting events give recruiters time 1:1 with a candidate to understand their qualifications, personality, and goals. This means quick vetting so a candidate can be sent along to a client.
- Organizations hosting jobs fairs: Schools, professional groups, and anyone else who had previously hosted job fairs can use virtual job fairs in a very similar way. You can assign “booths” to companies, and allow your job seekers to then visit these booths to learn more about the companies and show off who they are as candidates.
- Job Seekers: While this page is really for the buyer of the virtual career fair software, it makes sense to talk about the job seeker as well. Job seekers can get a great feel for the organization through chatting with recruiters, and employees at companies they are interested in. This ensures a mutual fit between company and employee.
- Ad Hoc Recruiting Events: Setting up a recruiting event in person can be a lot of work. You need to book a space, get food and drinks, make sure your recruiters are around, and hope the job seekers show up. Virtual recruiting events are a lot less work given the lack of physical infrastructure needed. Also, people can access these from anywhere so the attendance rates are much higher. This makes it easy to setup ad hoc recruiting events with only a few days notice and still make them a success.
- Employer Branding: Virtual recruiting events are also great ways to sell your organization to companies. You can setup professional development content as part of these events with a speaker, and then pitch your employee value propositions to candidates in 1:1 chats.
- Pre-Employment Testing: A virtual career fair is a great way for both job seekers and recruiting teams to understand if there is a mutual fit before a candidate is moved into the interview process. In this way, these tools are similar to other top pre hire assessment tools.
Pitfalls to avoid when using a virtual career fair platform
While virtual career fairs can be a great way for employers and organizations to engage job seekers, there are ways of screwing these up. Here are some pitfalls to make sure you avoid:
- Too many booths: Ever go to a trade show and there are hundreds of booths? It’s hard to navigate, overwhelming, and sometimes you just want to leave. It’s the same for virtual events, especially if candidates are accessing yours on mobile. Make sure you have a manageable number of booths, probably less than 50.
- Staff it right: If you don’t have enough recruiters/employees to talk to job seekers, then it’s going to lead to an awful candidate experience. Make sure candidate wait time stays low, ideally less than 5 minutes.
- Follow Up: Your organization needs to have a way to get candidates into your ATS, and quickly follow up to make sure they are moving forward in the interview process. There’s nothing worse than waiting two weeks after a job fair to hear back.
Pricing Models of Virtual Career Fair Platforms
Pricing for virtual events typically depends on a few different factors depending on the vendor. Pricing will almost certainly be based on a combination of the number of events you want to do, as well as the scale of these events (number of booths, registrants, recruiters).
Our recommendation would be to commit to doing a few of these events so that you can get a sense for the value they bring to your organization, and work out the bugs that may come with the first one. This will also give you some leverage to get better pricing on a per event basis versus just signing up for one event.
Features of Virtual Career Fair Platforms
Here are some of the key features you should be looking for when decided between different virtual career fair vendors.
- Mobile: Many job seekers access virtual events on mobile, this entire experience needs to be mobile friendly.
- Customer branding: The ability to have your color/logos on the signup and events page.
- Landing pages: Quickly spin up beautiful, mobile optimized landing pages to collect signups, share expectations about the event, and sell your organization/event.
- Single Sign On: The ability for your job seekers and recruiters/employees/hiring managers to use SSO to access the platform.
- Custom candidate information: The ability to ask custom questions of job seekers when they sign up, or before they enter a given booth.
- Event reminders: Text (SMS) and email based reminders about the event.
- Event tutorial: Candidates can get a quick primer on how to use the platform to make the most of their experience and cut down on tech difficulties.
- Webinars: The ability to do video broadcasts to all event attendees. Great for professional development content, to share insights into different roles, or other employer branding content.
- Booths: Different sections of the event with different types of people (recruiters for a given role, from a given company, hiring managers, employees, etc) so candidates can talk to who is relevant.
- Booth search: Easy search for different areas of the event, especially on mobile.
- Chat Timer: A timer that both recruiter and job seeker can see so that there is a natural end to the conversation.
- Multi-chat: Recruiters can chat with multiple candidates at once.
- Snippets: Recruiters can use pre-filled questions and responses.
- Chat transcripts: Ability to send hiring managers chats, or add them to ATS for reference later in the recruiting process.
- Group chats: Ability to have multiple job seekers chat with a company representative.
Questions to ask on Demos
When you do talk to vendors, we recommend you come prepared with a few questions to ask. While each team is different, here are some sample questions for virtual career fair platform providers:
- How do candidates get into the ATS?
- How can I setup an event landing page?
- How many recruiters/registrants/booths am I limited to?
- How can I brand these career fairs with my corporate info?
- Can we talk about one of the roles I hire for in high volume and how I could setup an event for this role from start to finish?
- What data are you seeing in terms of hires from an event of a given size?
- What information can I collect on candidates beyond their resumes? Can I ask custom questions so I can prioritize candidates.
Implementing a Virtual Career Fair Solution
Setting up a virtual career fair actually isn’t that hard. The event landing page can be up and running in 15 minutes. From there, it’s all about marketing the event to your talent pools, on your career site, and in job postings.
Given the event is virtual and people don’t need commute, take time off work, get child care, etc you can setup these events and have a large attendance with only a few days notice.
Virtual Career Fair FAQs
What is a virtual career fair?
A virtual career fair is a networking event where job seekers can engage with companies online instead of in person.
Are virtual career fairs useful?
Yes, virtual career fairs are useful, especially during COVID-19 when large gatherings can potentially be dangerous. Even outside of a pandemic, both companies and job seekers will find value in being able to connect virtually, as it allows for a wider geographic range of participants.
How does a virtual career fair work?
Employers and job seekers sign up for an event and get connected via chat rooms, video conferencing, and webinars to exchange information. Oftentimes a candidate will upload a resume that will match them to relevant employers and vice versa. However, candidates can also browse what companies are featured and reach out themselves.
How can a virtual career fair platform help my recruiting process?
A virtual career fair can help your recruiting process by connecting your business with a wide talent pool at a single event.
What are the use cases for virtual career fairs?
- Companies: Businesses can engage a wide range of talent
- Employment agencies: Recruiting firms benefit from large population of job seekers, giving them lots of 1:1 time with candidates allowing for quick vetting
- Organizations hosting jobs fairs: Universities and professional groups who do career fairs in person will benefit from hosting similar events online
- Job Seekers: job seekers can find multiple different networking opportunities and even perhaps find their next position
- Ad Hoc Recruiting Events: In person events require a lot of overhead, while virtual events require much less time and effort to put together and often achieve similar results
- Pre-Employment Testing: Great way for job seekers and recruitment teams to understand if there’s a fit before moving someone into the hiring pipeline
Best Practices
If you’re going to setup virtual events as part of your recruiting process, we wanted to share some best practices we’ve learned while putting this guide together so that you can be successful:
- Leverage Career site: Make sure to use your career website to drive traffic to your virtual event’s sign up page. Obviously, a lot of job seekers with high intent are checking you out on your career page, do your best to drive this traffic to your next online event.
- Leverage Job Postings: Instead of having people apply to a role on your job postings, you can drive people to a virtual career fair sign up page. This allows you to sell the candidate on your organization, and quickly get a feel for whether you want to push them into the actual interview process.
- Talent Pools: Past applicants, silver medalists, talent community members and any other candidate database are great pools of talent you should be telling about your next career events.
- Social Proof: Social proof your signup pages with quotes from past job seekers about your events, what makes your company a great place to work, and any other third party validation of your organization (Glassdoor ratings, awards, funding, customer logos, etc).
- Set Expectations: Many job seekers have never been to a virtual career fair – let them know what to expect. Who will be there from your team, how long will they get to chat with them, how long will it take, text vs video chats, how to prepare, etc.
- Candidate Notes: Just like in a normal job fair, your recruiters will meet a ton of candidates. Make sure they are taking notes immediately after talking to a given candidate so that they know whether or not they want to move them forward.
Last Advice
If your company is still hiring during COVID-19, then you’re going to want to look at virtual career fairs as a way to get in front of and convert candidates.
However, we’d say that even after social distancing becomes less important, virtual career fairs are a great way to engage talent and move them down your hiring funnel.
So, it makes sense to explore this channel for companies, recruiting firms, and organizations that run their own career fairs. Good luck!
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