What we learned...

2020....what can I say? Like you, the team at Bowen was forced to scramble and update our plans and processes to go virtual with career fairs. Happily, our efforts were largely successful, and we were able to recruit some great students! Credit to you and your hard work for pivoting, figuring out the technology, and successfully preparing your students! In the process of recording lessons learned, I made some observations that I felt may be helpful to share with university partners.

We know you work with many employers, and this is a single organization’s perspective, but hopefully some of the observations are helpful in your planning and continuous improvement. We all seek to help students succeed together, and it is my hope this will be helpful. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk more about any of this. While it was successful, I know my team will always prefer in-person career fairs, and we can’t wait to get together again!

OBSERVATION #1

STUDENTS WERE BETTER PREPARED FOR VIRTUAL CAREER FAIRS THAN IN-PERSON CAREER FAIRS

I was very impressed by the students who we spoke with at the virtual career fairs this year. They dressed to par, had their elevator pitch prepared, had researched our company ahead of time, and had questions prepared to ask our company reps. In talking with one of the students after one of the fairs, she stated:

“I felt more confident talking to the employers than I did at the in-person career fair I attended in the past. The virtual career fair allowed me to be in my apartment – a familiar, comfortable environment, and it didn’t feel chaotic like in-person fairs do with students walking around bumping into each other.”

OBSERVATION #2

VIRTUAL CAREER FAIR PLATFORMS WITH TIMESLOT RESERVATIONS ARE PREFERRED

The platforms that allowed students to schedule a specific time to talk with an employer were most efficient for both the student and the employer.

Our company reps were able to go into these career fairs knowing the exact times they were going to be talking with students. This allowed them to block out the time to fully engage with students, but also allowed flexibility in their valuable days to plan to work on other tasks when they had open time.

OBSERVATION #3

LESS IS MORE WHEN IT COMES TO TRAINING GUIDES FOR EMPLOYERS

Universities definitely need to provide training guides to employers on how to best utilize the virtual career fair platform, but they should keep the training to the basics.

Employers want the specifics on how to best utilize the platform and that’s it. Our two person recruiting team had to familiarize ourselves with the ins and outs of seven different platforms. This training needed to extend to our employee reps as well.

Sorting through all of the information to find the basics was difficult at times.

Our Preferred Virtual Career Fair Platforms:

Handshake: joinhandshake.com

Career Fair+: app.careerfairplus.com

Platform Features We Valued:

• Allow students to schedule timeslots with employers
• Video conversations being hosted within the platform (vs. external platform)
• User friendly and easy to navigate
• Employers being able to view info about students ahead of the fair
• Ability to set preference on major and grade level
• Ability to view student info post-fair and download student information

View Printable Article - https://bowen.box.com/s/approbu8irm0vtprrdaa4vwgi7uvzt8z