The State of Virtual Job Fairs in a Post-COVID World

Despite the enormous challenges businesses faced in 2020, talented candidates continued to graduate from universities, complete certification programs, and leave their employers for new opportunities. Now that more companies have begun to reopen their hiring processes, virtual job fairs and digital recruiting events have replaced traditional meet-and-greets as the top spot for companies to connect with top talent.

Virtual job fairs provide a host of advantages. Many businesses could not have continued to source talent effectively without the virtual environments that made socially distant conversations possible. Top virtual event platforms connect job seekers and recruiters using chat tools and videoconferences to forge connections between two sides that depend on one another for growth. Even after the pandemic fades, virtual job fairs will continue to be popular thanks to the ease with which companies can host and promote them, as well as their lower costs.

As virtual events and digital recruiting events grow in popularity, though, we wanted to learn more about how candidates view these opportunities. Are they excited to meet companies this way? What do they feel is missing? How can companies and schools improve? Our research revealed all these answers and more.

Methodology

On October 28, 2020, we surveyed 600 students based in the U.S. about their experiences attending virtual job fairs and digital recruiting events. Each respondent had to have graduated within the past 12 months or must have been scheduled to graduate within the next 12 months. All respondents confirmed they had attended a virtual recruiting event or job fair within the past six months.

Key Findings

These are a few of the most relevant or most surprising findings our research uncovered:

• Opinions are split on in-person versus virtual events. Respondents tended to be in their early twenties, making them Gen Z digital natives. About a third of respondents said they prefer virtual events over in-person events, while a little over half still prefer in-person events.
• Most students attended between 2–5 events. People who attend virtual job fairs rarely attend just one. According to our results, 66% attended 2–5 events, 14% attended 5–10, and 3.8% attended more than 10. Only 15% of respondents said they only attended a single event.
• Attending virtual job fairs usually leads to one-on-one interviews. Students who make the effort to attend typically reap the rewards. 80% of respondents who attended at least one virtual event proceeded to the one-on-one interview stage.
• One-on-one interviews earned through virtual events lead to job offers. Numbers remain high at the next stage as well. Over 45% of respondents who had one-on-one interviews as a result of attending a virtual event received a job offer, and 22.2% received internship offers.

These findings are important, but they still don’t tell the whole story. Let’s dive deeper into the data to learn more about how today’s emerging talent perceives virtual recruiting events.

Part 1: Profile of the Candidates

This section covers the background of survey respondents in more detail, including the number of virtual events attended and their views on how their schools’ career services departments prepared them for future opportunities.

Our survey indicated a close split on both age and gender. 54% of respondents were female, while 46% were male. Ethnically, 10% of respondents were Asian, 11% were Hispanic, 14% of respondents were Black, and 51% were white. Current students slightly outnumbered recent graduates, with 48% of respondents saying they had graduated within the last year. 51% said they planned to graduate within 12 months.

When Students Attend, They Go All-In

All respondents had to attend at least one virtual event to be eligible to take the survey. While 15.5% met the minimum requirement, the rest of the group went above and beyond — in some cases, quite far beyond.

The majority attended between two and four events, but an impressive 17.6% attended five or more virtual events, suggesting students who attend one event are quite likely to attend more. These numbers bode well both for event organizers and for companies looking to attract highly motivated candidates.

How Do Students Know When and Where to Attend?

In most cases, students decide which events to attend based on information they receive from their university career centers. This could indicate that career centers are doing a good job of informing the student body, or it could simply mean that virtual events are likely to partner with career centers and, therefore, career centers are most likely to be the first point of contact for students. Either way, though, virtual job fairs usually tailor the message, while career centers simply pass the message along. Considering this, virtual events should put plenty of effort into crafting the right message when partnering with career centers for information distribution.

Rounding out the top three resources for students to decide which events to attend are friends and recruiters, with virtually identical numbers. Friends in this case are likely members of the same major or school, so they likely heard from another source first. Recruiters still play an important role in direct outreach as well, especially for industries where top talent is scarce.

Students generally appreciate the role their career services departments play in informing them about job fairs, with 74.9% saying their career centers do a “pretty good” or “outstanding” job. Numbers here reinforce the idea that hosts and company attendees of virtual job fairs can and should depend on career centers to increase attendance of quality candidates, but they should not limit their marketing to that channel alone.

Part 2: How Virtual Events Happen During a Pandemic

Virtual job fairs were trending well before the pandemic hit, but social distancing requirements skyrocketed the industry’s growth. Many students had attended in-person events before the pandemic sent them home, and opinions were split on preferences regarding virtual or in-person.

Earning an A in Attendance

Prior to COVID-19, most students in our survey had already attended at least one job fair or recruiting event in person.

Among the general student population, this number would be lower. Our survey only considered students who had attended at least one virtual event, and students who attend one event are more likely to have attended others. The data becomes more interesting when we examine the impressions of in-person versus virtual events among students who had attended both.

Nearly a third of students said they preferred virtual job fairs, but more than half still say in-person events are superior. Reasons for this preference can vary widely: Some students may believe their skills or charisma translates better in person, while others may appreciate having fewer distractions in a virtual environment. Only about 11% said they had no preference or were not sure, so most students do have an opinion one way or the other.

Virtual Job Fairs Champion Inclusivity, But Could Be Better

Students in our survey were generally pleased at how virtual job fairs were inclusive of students from a variety of backgrounds. According to the respondents, though, job fairs did a slightly better job of being inclusive to all genders than to all races. 82% said the companies at virtual job fairs were pretty good to outstanding at embracing all genders, while 78.5% felt companies were pretty good to outstanding at being inclusive to all races.

Again we must ask why, and again, the answer is not immediately clear. It is possible students were more conscious of race-related issues because of the political climate in the U.S. and were therefore more likely to judge events a bit more harshly based on those standards. This could also explain the larger number of “outstanding” responses for race (36.7%) compared to gender (33%), even as the combined number of “pretty good” and “outstanding” was lower for race. This polarization effect could encourage virtual event organizers to be even more conscious of their diversity and inclusivity efforts.

Attendees Looking for Jobs Often Get Them

Attendees of job fairs are invariably looking for new opportunities. Fortunately for them, virtual job fairs have proven to be an especially effective method of securing both one-on-one interviews and actual offers of employment.

Four out of five attendees at virtual job fairs secured at least one one-on-one interview.

Digging deeper into the types of interviews conducted reveals even more good news for students and businesses alike. More than a third of virtual attendees who secured interviews received and accepted a job offer, while 17.5% received and accepted internship offers. In addition, 15.4% received either a job or interview offer and turned the offer down, suggesting they had multiple options. Even those who did not receive offers immediately felt good about their odds, with 21.7% saying they had not received an offer but expected to.

For companies attending virtual job fairs, these numbers indicate good candidates attend virtual events in force, but the race to acquire the best talent is still a tight one. Many respondents turned down jobs for one reason or another, and most received offers. Companies cannot afford to sit back and wait while the best candidates receive fast offers from the competition.

Part 3: What Students Expect From the Future and How Virtual Career Events Can Improve

Students find success at virtual job fairs, but not all events are created equal. Attendees had plenty of opinions to share regarding how hosts and companies could improve down the road.

Keep It Short

Students don’t have time to waste on hours-long affairs. They want to get into the job fair, make their connections, secure the interview, and move on. According to our research, more than half of students who attend job fairs online prefer the virtual events to last between 30 minutes and one hour, with 10.7% saying 30 minutes is the upper limit.

Around a third of students were comfortable attending events between 1–3 hours long. Longer events may make sense in certain industries with several potential hiring companies or more complicated vetting processes. In general, though, shorter is better according to students.

Ranking Device Preferences

Although Gen Z tends to prefer mobile experiences over seated desktop or laptop experiences in many respects, virtual job fairs do not make the list. Our respondents overwhelmingly preferred to use a desktop computer or laptop to attend virtual job fairs.

Students don’t always have access to laptops or desktop computers, though. Even if they do, they may not have access to a quiet environment that would be appropriate for an interview at a virtual job fair. Hosts and companies should continue to facilitate attendance for people across a variety of devices.

Knowledge Is Nice, But Money Is Better

Students attend a variety of career-related virtual events (even classes). However, when it comes to online attendance, they prefer job fairs over every other format by a wide margin.

Self-selection could play a role here again, as some students who attended only networking panels, industry knowledge events, or company Q&As would not have been eligible to take this survey. However, the clear preference for job fairs indicates students are more interested in securing employment than in learning new tips when considering whether to attend a virtual event.

Engagement Still Reigns Supreme

Virtual job fairs may not compete with theme parks for thrills, but attendees still expect hosts and companies to put in the effort. We received a wide mix of responses regarding potential improvements to virtual job fairs.

Attendees narrowly selected “more entertainment” as the top choice for improvements in future job fairs. “Opportunity to ask more questions” also landed high on the list. Students also want companies to follow up after job fairs, even if the follow-up doesn’t mean an interview or job offer. By communicating more, companies can boost their brands as employers while leaving attendees with a positive impression.

What’s Next for Virtual Job Fairs

No matter how long COVID-19 lasts, virtual events have established a firm hold on the recruiting industry. Companies can interact with candidates from all over the world, if they choose, and attendees can attend more events in a shorter amount of time while enjoying close connections with the companies who are participating.

Our research indicates the most successful virtual job fairs will follow a few best practices:

• Don’t treat recruitment as a transactional duty.

Recruiting has long been a transactional industry. Candidates hear from recruiters in short bursts, and recruiters move quickly from one person to the next. Many recruiters with diversity requirements created policies requiring the interview of ethnic minority candidates to hire certain quotas of members in minority groups, their own “Rooney Rules” of sorts.

This is not the way forward. The new generation knows how to build online relationships at scale, and they expect companies to meet that expectation. Companies must understand how to communicate in that realm to remain competitive as employers. Now, instead of thinking transactionally, recruiters need to think about the long-term impact of every conversation.

To recruit more diverse talent, companies have to start building authentic relationships within more diverse communities. There is no silver bullet solution to send a recruiter into the wild who will come back with a pool of qualified candidates from a variety of backgrounds. Only deliberate, long-term effort can make the difference companies need.

• Leverage the data that comes with the digital.

Virtual job fairs generate tons of data that in-person events do not. When recruiting online, companies can see where attendees go, with whom they interact, and whether they engage with the content available to them. This unprecedented level of insight should not be left unused.

Smart companies have already begun to identify and share their diversity metrics in an effort to understand the work ahead of them and gain recognition among more diverse candidate pools. With online events, companies not only see the number of candidates, but the quality and engagement of those candidates — and the rates of hire.

Combined, this data can provide recruiters with concrete ROI from virtual events in a more granular way. Virtual job fairs help companies know more about the people they meet and how those people feel. Companies that track, analyze, and act on this information will be far better off than companies that do not.

• Employer brands matter more than ever.

The newest generation of talent knows more about their potential employers than all the generations who came before. They know how to use social media to suss out which companies are good and which are not, and that goes for current employees, too.

Employees are one of the most impactful channels for recruitment, good or bad. Companies must ensure their current workers are happy if they want to attract new ones. This goes for taking a stance on political issues as well as providing relevant and unique benefits that match employee expectations. When employees are happy, they reach out to the best people in their networks to join them.

Increased awareness also means companies cannot simply invest in advertising and call themselves diverse or employee-centered. Real data, real people, and real conversations convince candidates of good intentions. Everything else is just advertising. While showcasing value as an employer does work to a degree, companies cannot get away with hypocrisy.

Final Tip: Don’t let the conversation die.

So many candidates attend a virtual event and think things went well, only to hear nothing from the organizer or the company after the event ends. Candidates deserve to know where they stand and what their next steps should be, even if the next step is to start looking elsewhere.

Online recruiting removes some of the human element from an already delicate process. Employers must be conscious of this fact and work deliberately to have better conversations before, during, and after their virtual job fairs. Who makes the hiring decisions? Who should candidates connect to for questions? Attendees of job fairs have plenty of questions, and the companies that provide proactive answers get the most interest from the best talent.

So, what’s next for virtual job fairs? More of them. As candidates begin to hear about more virtual job fairs, they will be more selective about which ones they attend. If you are an employer or host of a job fair, use the advice and research from this study to provide the best possible experience for your attendees.