Getting future-ready: reimagining virtual career fairs for Singapore
The marginal cost of an additional student to the same virtual session is close to zero. Let’s make it happen.
During Circuit Breaker, a team of like-minded friends started CareerContact, a ground-up initiative that aims to help pre-university students in Singapore discover their passions and make informed decisions about their future career pathways through connections between schools and industry professionals.
Across the seven webinars organized since 29 April 2020, we have had over 1200 signups from over nine institutions in Singapore. Allowing students to be exposed to a range of career perspectives from local entrepreneurs, professionals in healthcare, lawyers from both the private and public sector and more.
In 2020, just like everything else, traditional in-person career fairs had to load up Zoom and hop online. Even as Singapore opens up, it’s clear that events can no longer operate in the same fashion as before. The question remains:
If career fairs have to be remote, why not make it available for everyone interested?
The equivalent to a nation-wide effort
(I) Coordination is necessary to organize programmes to ensure that a wide and varied spread of speakers are chosen across sectors.
(II) Dealing with overcrowding. Assuming the best-case scenario of having too many events, the event webpage should have a good UX design to help students navigate the sea of speakers or events with ease.
(III) Optimized systems. In another best-case scenario of over-subscription, the sign-up process needs to be streamlined to able to handle large amounts of registration at scale.
Weighing up the benefits
With large events, it is essentially economies of scale:
(1) A buffet of choice
When contacts are pooled, students benefit from a wider range of speakers and have a better chance to hear someone speak. With a proper web interface, the issue of overcrowding will also be addressed.
(2) Minimize redundancies:
- Agencies or institutions do not have to set aside extra resources to speak to multiple educational institutions;
- With the right systems, the total amount of time or resources we invest in planning such events should be smaller than if each school had to plan each event themselves. Managing a single registration portal, automated event reminder emails, fewer moderators needed for merged or repeated events — will all contribute to a more streamlined process.
Reimagining online career fairs requires time and collaboration. But the team at CareerContact believes that this is precisely what embodies the spirit of education — by working together, we can better equip students with the skills and knowledge to realize their potential.
CareerContact is committed to improving workflows and supporting these initiatives at scale. Whether you are an educator or industry professional interested in lending your support, feel free to reach out to us at CareerContact.cc or join us at CareerContact.app.
