Hybrid Hiring Events Are a Great Option As COVID Returns

As our lives were held hostage by the pandemic, many of our traditional habits were no longer sustainable.  We embraced the concept of working remotely while at the same time letting go of traditional activities such as commuting to work, dining out, teaching in classrooms, weekend getaways, and working out at the gym.  Over the past couple of years, businesses were forced to make significant adjustments and learn how to be comfortable with virtual event platforms and virtual hiring software.

What is Hybrid Recruiting and Why Does it Work?

The combination of in-person recruiting practices with the use of a virtual recruitment platform is commonly referred to as hybrid recruitment.  The concept involves a strategy for acquiring talent that yields the most significant results compared to how the in-person and virtual practices do separately.  Hybridization works because of 3 key factors – 1) it allows people to move forward so they can achieve their goals, 2) it enables increased flexibility in the hiring process, and 3) it reduces the risk of exposure to the virus.

Unique Hybrid QR Code

The Premier Virtual platform takes hybrid events to the next level by generating a unique QR code for each booth at the event. The QR code is printed and placed in front of the booth, which allows candidates to scan it and access all of the employers information virtually. Instead of standing in a long line, they can quickly view the open positions and submit their resume to apply. While the candidate can still meet with the recruiter in person, they can also move on to the next opportunity and come back when there are less people on line. In addition, the recruiters now have all of the candidates information stores electronically for easy follow-up.

Furthermore, hybrid recruitment practices arose out of the need for alternate talent acquisition methods because of adapting to working remotely and canceling in-person activities.  Upon further consideration, business owners and recruiters discovered the many benefits of hybrid recruiting.  As a result, an overwhelming 81% of talent recruiters agree that recruiting job candidates through the use of in-person interviews and video interviewing platforms will continue post-pandemic and may become the new standard. It has helped access more people living in other cities and countries without the additional cost of relocating them.

The 6 Benefits of Hybrid Hiring Events

Essentially, headhunting takes a proactive approach whereas traditional recruiting is reactive.  Because of the following benefits considering the hybrid recruiting approach is well worth it:

  • It enables recruiters to broaden their approach by creating a solution to their hiring needs and reaching a larger target audience of candidates.
  • It creates a way for companies to gather all of the in-person activity digitally, for easy access and future follow-up.
  • It gives job-seekers that are apprehensive about in-person events and opportunity to participate and apply for jobs they might have otherwise not been able to.
  • It finds individuals that are a better fit for companies and are more likely to remain with them over the long term
  • It emphasizes the needs and requirements of your business
  • It provides business owners and employers access to a high-quality talent pool.
  • It provides more strategic insight into the needs of the business and the role the candidate would be playing if hired
  • It reaches a global target audience of job candidates.

The hybrid approach to recruiting and hiring enables employers to conduct a more comprehensive search for the right talent.  For more information about the best virtual event platforms, call Premier Virtual at (561) 717-9717 today.

The Benefits for Choosing Hybrid Hiring Events

The world is going hybrid. Are you ready? 

Premier Virtual is, and with its future-focused technology, its team plans to lead the charge. 

Talking in-person or virtual. Which one do you want to do? There’s no need to choose one when you can do both.

Why? Because the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. 

Future-focused technology company Premier Virtual supports the push for hybrid events, meaning, in-person events should also incorporate a virtual platform for the best of both worlds. 

Premier Virtual recently executed a case study to see how many people would show up for an in-person versus virtual hiring event at South Florida Tech Hub.  

There were less than 100 in-person attendees, but there were more than 500 virtual attendees. By offering both options, they were able to expand their candidate pool and employers were able to meet candidates in person and on the virtual platform.

The benefits don’t end there. Choosing a hybrid route when it comes to the hiring process prevents ATS systems from weeding out qualified candidates. 

A recent Harvard Business report revealed that ATS, which is an applicant tracking system, is responsible for blocking or disqualifying many qualified applicants. How? 

By ranking relevant keywords, skills, degrees, credentials, responsibilities, and other qualities that indicate to a hiring manager or recruiter that the applicant is qualified for the position. This becomes an issue because some applicants can get lost in the ample applications that are coming through the system. 

A hybrid option resolves these issues by allowing hiring managers to take matters into their own hands. They can meet candidates in what Premier Virtual calls a “virtual hiring room.” 

With the company’s technology, recruiters are able to schedule an ‘open-house on set days and times where candidates can meet and chat with recruiters.  If there is a fit, the recruiter can enter into a pre-screening interview, and then decide if the candidate should be scheduled for a more formal interview.

Given the circumstances of the past two years, we can no longer solely rely on in-person hiring career fairs and events. Virtual hiring is the future, and companies should start preparing for it. 

Choose Premier Virtual for Online Hiring Events

Premier Virtual fosters innovation and strives to provide solutions to complex virtual problems. Through building relationships based on integrity, trust, honesty, transparency, and teamwork, the tech-forward company always gets the job done.  If your company would like to host a virtual hiring event, contact Premier Virtual today.

In-Person vs. Virtual Career Fairs

Over the last year and a half, the virtual job fair has seen amazing growth as people worldwide embrace the concept of increased online communication. Premier Virtual is the number one virtual career fair platform in the workforce development industry and has powered thousands of in-person career fair events over the past 18 months. They give some insight into the two different types of career or job fairs. 

An in-person event is typically an event where all the attendees are physically in the same location. A virtual career fair takes place entirely online; everyone attends from where they are. Both have their advantages and some drawbacks. 

In-person, face-to-face, human connection is still the most effective way to communicate with others and has long been considered the norm. The tone of voice, eye movements, body movements, nonverbal ways of sending messages all are part of communication and are often lost over a video and internet connection. In-person communication has long been considered more honest; it enhances credibility and trust, builds solid relationships, and is motivating to foster collaboration with others. 

In-person job fairs have their drawbacks, Steven Edwards CEO of Premier Virtual points out that often there are misconceptions at in-person events, a long line at a booth can make people think it is a great place to work, and they can spend much of the time waiting to talk to someone, only to find out there are no jobs or not jobs they qualify for or would be interested in. Additionally, in-person events are expensive to host and can be hard to pull off efficiently, even before COVID-19. 

Virtual job fairs were around pre-pandemic; however, they gained traction starting in mid-2020. As people stayed home and companies still needed employees, the virtual job fair became the go-to format to connect with prospective hires and require far less time and money on the part of the host. Virtual career fairs are far more versatile, easier to plan, and operate on a more efficient level than in-person events, not to mention they save a ton of cash for companies. 

Virtual career fairs allow more qualified candidates from a wider candidate pool to connect with potential employers and allow for more accessible data collection and reports for companies. Virtual events are not impacted by weather, traffic, or building issues, giving candidates far more flexibility on when and how they can attend. The virtual platform allows for the screening of candidates and recruiting highly qualified candidates for specific positions. 

Virtual job fairs can be overwhelming, with so many booths to choose from, and they lack that in-person connection and pose the risk of attendees being distracted. Despite these concerns, virtual job fairs are only growing in popularity and might be the new standard procedure of many companies. A hybrid career fair melds the best of both worlds and is possibly the best way around reaching the maximum number of qualified candidates.

The innovative and proprietary platform developed by Premier Virtual has powered 2,500 virtual job fairs to date, connecting 25,000 employers to over 250,000 job seekers. Helping companies and job seekers across the country, they act as a parachute to help stop the freefall of the business world and keep qualified candidates working, even in the toughest of times. 

A veteran-owned company, Premier Virtual is dedicated to changing people’s lives through its groundbreaking virtual career fair platform. Learn more on their website

High Schools to Offer Virtual and Hybrid Career Fairs

A recent article from NACE – The National of Colleges and Employers showed the undeniable need for virtual career fairs as it relates to fall internships.

Not only is the demand remarkably high, but so is the preference. According to the NACE poll, 46% of recruiters prefer to attend a career fair virtually. Many other polls have shown that students reported excellent outcomes attending virtual career fairs. 70% of students polled believed that employers would have to participate in virtual career fairs to compete for top graduating talent.

No longer are virtual career fairs considered a trend or a Covid workaround. By all means, these results have shifted the way recruiters attract and hire top talent, and they don’t see any reason to go back to the in-person-only format.

The report shows that nearly 1/3 of all recruiters prefer to attend career fairs only virtually, with no need for the in-person option. That paradigm shift in such a short period of time is a testament to not only how the virtual platform can replicate an in-person event but how much more effective and efficient it is.

  TOP PREFERENCE  MOST LIKELY CASE
Exclusively in person 13% 0%
Exclusively virtual 32% 42%
Attending both in-person and virtual 46% 44%
Not attending any career fairs in fall 2021 4% 2%
Not sure 5% 12%

Source: Spring 2021 Quick Poll on Internships and Fall Recruiting, National Association of Colleges and Employers

Virtual career fairs are more efficient, effective, and they are also the preferred choice among students and recruiters. Meaning, every school will have to offer this option to its students in order to meet expectations and remain competitive.

This effective dynamic of virtual recruitment will attract more recruiters, more students and increase the university’s notoriety, which will gain a better opportunity to highlight its positioning. That’s why virtual & hybrid career fairs are so attractive to students and, consequently, an excellent opportunity for universities.

Why Virtual and Hybrid outperform in-person career fairs

Nothing can replicate a physical handshake, but the tools and features of virtual can very closely mirror an in-person event. Besides, most students are digital natives and are more comfortable interacting and communicating online. The comfort with this format might help reduce interview nerves and tension and improve results.

The Premier Virtual platform makes it very easy for students to register online, upload their resumes. As soon as they register, they’ll receive a training video that will show them how easy it is to navigate the event. Once the event goes live, they can easily access the lobby, research the companies and chat with recruiters. A process that in-person can be intimidating and take a lot of time takes a matter of seconds online.

Recruiters who have already attended virtual career fairs have quickly adapted to this format. The benefits include:

  1. Viewing resumes before the start of the event.
  2. Manage multiple chats at the same time.
  3. Real-time reporting
  4. Number of students are in your booth,
  5. Number of resumes submitted,
  6. Number of interviews completed,
  7. Number of job offers
  8. Number of hires/offers accepted.

These insights are what truly make virtual career fairs that much more valuable than their in-person counterparts. While you can collect some of this data from in-person events, having everything electronically available in real-time and the ability to import directly into your CRM tool is something that in-person can’t compete with.

Naturally, if you have not planned for virtual career fairs this fall, it’s time to do so. There is no more waiting to see what ”happens after Covid”. You also don’t have the luxury of time as summer is quickly approaching, and your students don’t want to wait until the last minute to understand their options.

While there are some virtual platforms or basic video conferencing tools that schools may have access to, a specialized career fair platform like Premier Virtual will ensure a successful event. Premier Virtual has powered nearly 2,000 events and has connected 20,000 employers to over 200,000 registered users.

Why Premier Virtual?

Our platform offers the most innovative features and remains the easiest to use. A school can sign-up a new account, set up their event, and go live within as little as 24 hours! A built-in set-up wizard walks you through each step so that you don’t miss any detail. If that wasn’t enough, every school is also assigned a dedicated account manager who will train each person to use the platform.

There are many other advantages over some of the more basic options on the market, and the cost is also one of them, as in lower-costs with our flat-rate pricing. Premier Virtual offers flat-rate pricing for unlimited events, which means your costs never go up, and you don’t pay a premium for larger events. Also, many schools monetize their career fairs by charging employers a nominal fee to participate. Fees collected from just one event can easily pay for the cost of a yearly license.

Please speak to one of our representatives and schedule a free demo to see how easy it is to add virtual to your next career fair. Whether you decide to go virtual-only or create a hybrid event by offering virtual and in-person, your students not only expect this option but deserve this chance to compete.

In-Person or Virtual Hiring Events? Get Both with Hybrid!

Here we are, basically a year into the Covid-19 pandemic and we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Several vaccines have been rolled out, and the monumental effort of getting America vaccinated is underway.

As I write this in Spring of 2021, we have begun to see slight declines in the infection rate, and hospitalizations are coming down. Best of all the death rate is also coming down, although we recently surpassed the morbid milestone of 500,000 deaths in America.  However, there are reports of 20 states experiencing increases and the talks of a possible fourth spike in cases.

One thing is certain, Covid-19 was a virtual technology accelerant. From one day to the next the American workforce was forced to work from home, and turning to virtual is what made it possible. Without a pandemic like COVID-19, corporate America would likely have continued to do business the same old way, and just inch along the technology curve.

Now, we have giant corporations such as Google and Twitter telling their workforce, they never have to return to the office. I’ve seen many of my colleagues do the same, and now the ‘new normal is that when it comes to office work, most of us are just as capable to be as productive or even more so, working from home or remotely.

The same has happened in the career fair space. What was once an in-person-only event, has migrated to virtual events and the results have been more than impressive.

A recent statewide virtual job fair in Virginia had 350 employers who were able to fill critical open positions from over 15,000 registered job-seekers! Not only is this an amazing accomplishment, but it’s something that could have never happened in person. Think about it, in a state like Virginia would it be possible to choose one central location, and have 350 companies set up booths to meet and greet over 15,000 job seekers. Not to mention the weather was cold with terrible travel conditions!

So now what? If we return to a new-normal post-COVID-19, are we going back to an in-person career fair and abandoning the virtual career fair model?
The answer is yes and no! We believe a hybrid model that offers both is the best strategy moving forward. Just ask anyone that has hosted or participated in a virtual career fair, as an employer or a candidate. They will tell you that the virtual event was amazing, easy to navigate, and most of all, extremely efficient and effective. Here is some of the feedback we are hearing from job-seekers:

• “This was a great experience! I was able to search for openings, have my resume viewed, and communicate just with the employers I was interested in, all without leaving my desk. The idea of a virtual career fair takes the pressure off of the job seeker and employer.”

• “The career fair was super easy to navigate. I quickly saw a few employers and job opportunities that I liked and was able to apply for. The recruiter was right in the room with me and after chatting a bit, we did a quick video interview, before I knew it, I had an offer to intern.”

• “Our generation has been chatting, texting, anything of that nature for our entire lives. Being part of a virtual job fair is a natural extension of the way we are used to communicating and doing things. I liked it, and I had a few recruiters contact me right away, and one made me a job offer!”

We know that hiring managers, workforce development boards, chambers of commerce, the military, tech organizations, and large corporations all over America have also had success well beyond their expectations, and they all agree that remote hiring will remain a vital part of their recruitment strategy going forward.
So, the numbers prove remote allows for unlimited participants on both the company side and job-seeker side, resulting in more quality hires. We also know that many people still want to offer the physical ‘meet-and-greet’ if and when it becomes viable.

With a virtual hiring platform like Premier Virtual, you don’t have to choose between the two. We make it easy to add a virtual option to your in-person event so that you can offer both options, and your organization can benefit from offering a hybrid event.

We are certain that the organizations that do, will have a competitive advantage over those who don’t. These organizations will be the beneficiaries of attracting top talent, by offering a hybrid option that will not limit their events to the local population, or to those who can physically attend the day of the in-person event.
To learn how you can create hybrid events, please visit www.PremierVirtual.com

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