Hosting Virtual Career Fairs for Teachers and Students
How schools are leveraging virtual host career fairs for staff and students
Leveraging Premier Virtual Beyond Hosting Job Fairs
Using the Premier Virtual platform to host hiring events is a no brainer. After all, it’s a powerful platform that allows you to maximize your virtual hiring by attracting and engaging with the most qualified prospects.
In addition, the virtual environment attracts both the active job seeker, as well as the more lucrative, passive job seeker, that employers are trying to get in front of. Because of its non-threatening, low-pressure environment, job seekers are more comfortable attending virtual job fairs to learn more about an employer and open positions.
When there is a good fit, job seekers can initiate a chat with the recruiter, and the recruiter can seamlessly transition into a video interview if they find the candidate has the skills they are looking for. The entire process can take just a matter of minutes, respecting everyone’s time and if an offer is made, greatly reducing time and cost to hire.
All that said, virtual platforms like Premier Virtual can help you do much more than host virtual job fairs. In fact, when leveraged properly it can become your all-in-one recruitment tool.
Here are some of the many ways Premier Virtual can improve your hiring strategy beyond hosting a virtual job fair.
- Host a Hybrid Event – the savviest of employers have truly begun to embrace this critical hiring strategy. Yes, we are in a post-pandemic world, but the behaviors that the pandemic helped accelerate are here to stay. Hybrid or remote work will continue to grow, and the ability to attend an event virtually will remain an attractive option to many job seekers. Beyond that, using Premier Virtual at an in-person job fairs is a great way to create a digital registration process, and keep track of all the activity digitally. No more printed resumes, or notes on paper to follow up with. Everything now can be captured digitally, downloaded in a comprehensive report that integrates with your current ATS system so that nothing (or no one) falls through the cracks.
- Schedule interviews in Advance – the Premier Virtual platform has and advanced interview scheduling tool, so that attendees do not have to wait in a long queue to speak with a recruiter. If the applicant sees a job they like, they can access the recruiters schedule and simply request an interview at an available time slot. This tool can also be used by the recruiter to schedule an interview with a job seeker they believe is a good fit, based on the resume, certifications or video resume uploaded by the job applicant.
- Virtual Job Board – we continue to see workforce boards and other employment agencies leverage the platform to post a virtual job board. This becomes a place where all the employers participating in the job fair can easily post their open positions, so that job seekers can see every opportunity at a glance. These boards can be accessed before and after the event, to continue to drive qualified candidates to the employer that best matches their job search.
- Resume Review Service – the Premier Virtual platform also offers a complimentary resume review service. Hosting a ‘virtual ready’ event prior to the hiring event offers a great deal of value to job seekers that might be a bit apprehensive if they are not familiar with the technology. This event is a great opportunity to offer the complimentary resume review service that all attendees can take advantage of. The initial review is complimentary and can significantly improve the chances of the attendee receiving an offer. This is also a great way to pre-screen candidates and even schedule interviews with qualified candidates.
- Workshops and Onboarding– as with resume reviews, leveraging the platform to host workshops and even onboarding provide a great deal of value to the attendees and those who go on to become employees. Workshops can be hosted by different employers or by different departments within one organization. They can range from helping attendees prepare to the event, to a simple ‘meet and greet’ with a company recruiter sharing details about the corporate culture and what an employee can expect when they work there. Transition the platform to the onboarding process is seamless since the employee is already familiar with the platform, and recruiters can meet one on one or create a group onboarding event.
As you can see, these are just some of the ways you can leverage Premier Virtual to do more than host virtual hiring events. There are many other uses and use cases, that you can download here.
Make 2023 the year you start using the Premier Virtual platform for everything it was intended for and watch your hiring results dramatically improve.
Successful Workforce Solutions – Hiring Event Guide
Anyone that dedicates themselves to helping others find employment has recognized a fundamental shift in hiring. Not only have many jobs permanently moved to remote, but most of the successful HR departments have made virtual hiring an integral part of their hiring strategy.
What exactly does that mean?
It means that savvy HR departments understand that it’s best to be flexible and meet the most qualified candidates on their terms. The days of scheduling an in-office interview to find out about a potential candidate are no longer a productive option for either party.
Candidates want to apply online, and they want to meet online and determine if there is a mutual fit, before investing a lot of time and energy in an interview process. Adding virtual accommodates these needs and makes the hiring process much more efficient.
Helping your corporate partners and employers understand this might be one of the most crucial roles your workforce development organization plays in this new hiring environment.
We should know!
After powering nearly 7,000 virtual hiring events, Premier Virtual has become the leading platform in the workforce solutions industry.
Our platform is dedicated to hosting hiring events, and we’ve built it with the experience our founder accumulated from hosting hiring events for nearly 9 years. The platform has also benefited from the feedback we receive from our clients. We take every bit of that information very seriously, and developed many features and upgrades as a result of that.
The success our clients have experienced is no fluke. In this guide we detail the most important steps we’ve seen our clients implement to achieve the best results, including:
- Be ‘Virtual Ready’
- How to leverage your virtual event platform
- Building Value
- Advance Interview Scheduling
- Platform Training
- Metrics and Analytics
- Future Focused
This guide also includes many different use cases, that we see our workforce clients doing across the nation. They have leveraged the platform well beyond hosting hiring events, making it an all-in-one virtual recruitment suite.
Download this guide to make sure your workforce board is getting the most out of your own virtual and hybrid hiring events and is prepared for the continual evolution in hiring.
Attracting Remote Talent Using Virtual Hiring Events
Attracting Talent For Remote Work Using Virtual Hiring Events
Working remotely has quickly become one of the more desirable perks employers can offer to prospective employees. It’s been estimated that by 2025, nearly 25% of the American workforce will be working remotely on a full-time basis. That’s almost double the percentage of individuals that were full-time remote employees before the COVID pandemic. Furthermore, as increasing numbers of corporations and organizations are turning to long-term hybrid or remote workplace models, employers will continue to compete for the top candidates in their industries.
Top 6 Qualities of the Best Remote Workers
While employers want to attract remote workers, that doesn’t include hiring just any remote worker. Many employers saw cash flows suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic and can’t just hire any applicant off the street. Therefore, it’s essential to attract the most productive remote candidates out there. Along with industry-specific competencies and skills, there are 6 qualities that the top candidates for remote employment should have. The most successful individuals will demonstrate these 6 skills:
- accountability
- critical thinking skills
- eagerness to ask questions
- interpersonal skills
- self-confidence
- strong written communication skills
The most talented candidates will go above and beyond whatever it takes to be successful in the virtual workplace. They will ensure that recruiters are impressed with their skill set.
How Can Employers Appeal to Remote Workplace Candidates?
As an employer, you need to be prepared for the unique challenges of recruiting the type of remote employees you need. First and most importantly, companies should already have a proven virtual recruiting and hiring process in place that continually measures and optimizes their effectiveness. In addition to this, the strategies listed below can help you attract and recruit the highest-quality remote employees:
- Ask for referrals and utilize other employees’ connections.
- Develop a strong online and social media presence.
- Invest in virtual career fairs and online hiring events.
- Manage your online reputation by:
- Posting company details and profiles on employment sites
- Consider any reviews as helpful feedback
- Understand that your brand can change
- Offer candidates more competitive, non-traditional benefits.
- Promote virtual career fairs and online hiring events.
- Utilize job boards, social media platforms, and other media to post job openings.
Some individuals may be more vital remote employees to a company than others. So, as an employer, you have to evaluate each candidate based on the job-specific skills and traits of the most productive remote workers. Plus, you need to develop unique strategies that will appeal to the best remote work candidates. For more information, call Premier Virtual today at (561) 717-9717 and talk with our company representatives. We are here to help you get started virtually.
Hiring has Undergone a Fundamental Shift
In fact, there has been more than one major shift in hiring in the past few years.
- The shift from in-person to virtual hiring
First, the shift from in-person to virtual that was accelerated by the pandemic is here to stay. It was already happening before the pandemic, but at that time, it was more of a ‘nice to have’ option, that quickly became a ‘must-have’ option due to social distancing.
What we found out is that virtual hiring is more efficient, more effective and with the right platform, extremely easy to execute. With Premier Virtual, the leading virtual hiring event platform, you can create your account, set up your event, and launch it all in a matter of minutes. Ideally, you want time to promote a virtual hiring event, but using the platform is not dependent only on hiring events.
An all-in-one virtual hiring platform like Premier Virtual is always on, and always open for your potential job candidates. You can leverage the platform 24/7 by creating virtual job boards, and virtual hiring rooms that never close. This gives your team, and your applicants the flexibility to research your company, apply and meet your recruiters.
With the built-in two-way scheduler, candidates can schedule time on a recruiter’s calendar, and recruiters can also request an interview with candidates they feel are a good match. Because the platform allows recruiters to search resumes, they can quickly find the talent they’re looking for. Recruiters can also view the video interviews that candidates can record as part of their profile to get a much better feel for the person, that you can’t get from reading a resume.
Virtual hiring has also led to virtual work which has exploded since the pandemic. Even with many companies insisting workers return to the office, the need and demand for virtual work remains. We project that employers who embrace this, and lead with this, will be much better positions to find and retain the top talent that prefer this style of work, and flexibility it offers.
We see national hiring events, that post positions with the description, ‘Anywhere, USA’ openings, or they group openings by time zones instead of specific office locations. Again, the companies that are embracing this approach and making remote part of their culture, are winning the talent wars.
- This shift to proactive hiring
Hiring remains one of the most difficult things companies have to do in order to remain competitive. The passive job market, although much larger than the active job market is often overlooked. Most companies are marketing themselves only to active job seekers, but every worker is a potential employee, if they know about your company and what you have to offer.
Strategies to consider that will keep your company in the hearts and minds of potential future employees include everything from being active in your community by supporting events and non-profits to creating a newsletter, blog or insightful podcasts.
If you are a tech company, and host mixers or meet-ups that are open to the public, you can attract passive job seekers that find value in your network. You may even create an in-formal networking group that helps its members connect and find meaningful work, even if it’s not at your company. The value you offer will give your company a competitive edge when it does have a position that meets that candidate’s skills.
Here again, virtual is a powerful tool since you can host virtual events and meet potential candidates. Creating a pipeline of talent is crucial to stay ahead of the labor crunch. A recent report shows hiring has slowed to 41 days on average, a number that was only 9 days in 2009. The cost to hire is also averaging at around $4,425, according to SHRM and If you want to be able to hire the best talent in the least amount of time, a professional pipeline is crucial.
We see that companies using virtual hiring events reducing time to hire to that 9–10-day period, which also comes with a dramatically reduced cost to hire, a win-win!
Have you made the shift?
Is your company still hiring in-person, only looking to fill jobs at the office, and not building a qualified pipeline of potential candidates?
If so, we can help you transition and leverage the tools available to make your company relevant in the job force and a place that is sought out, instead of the other way around. Schedule a free demo today to see how the Premier Virtual, all-in-one recruitment platform can position your company for hiring success.
One Solution to Your Virtual Hiring Needs
Do you remember the first time you got interviewed for a job? You probably acted and looked as professional as you could at that time but the stress of the interview was overwhelming and written all over your face, wasn’t it? Job recruiters see thousands of people just like you every year. They’ll schedule numerous interviews and invest a lot of their time in the process but they still have a difficult time accommodating everyone interested in that one job.
This equates to a huge waste of energy, resources, and time, all of which could’ve been avoided with the use of virtual hiring software and video interviewing platforms. As it stands, virtual reality has revolutionized the job hiring process as well as our behavior and the way we live. Today, increasing numbers of companies are using the best virtual event software and virtual event platforms to be more efficient and shorten the amount of time required to complete the interviewing and hiring process.
When you do a virtual event online, you can help target a higher audience. Premier Virtual provides the best virtual hiring platform and software that will enable companies and employers to recruit the best candidates in the following ways:
- Our virtual career fair platform helps job candidates to see the role they’ll be playing in your company – from that point, the individual can determine if the job is suitable and facilitates their future career needs.
- Our virtual event platforms will help you attract younger job candidates – with our virtual career fair platform, you’ll be able to attract the most qualified college graduates.
- Our virtual hiring platform will help increase candidate engagement – by using our virtual hiring platform and software you’ll be able to a collaborative environment that engages the job candidate and explains the main goals of your business.
- Our virtual recruiting event platform and software will enable you to show job applicants the types of projects they’ll be engaged in – it will test their abilities at making smart decisions and enable you to choose the best candidates in the process.
- Our virtual recruitment platform enables job candidates to see your office – the interview process won’t provide a clear picture of your office culture and the surrounding environment. Our virtual hiring platform and software will.
Virtual reality is now a key component in the career recruitment and hiring process. For more information about our products and how they can facilitate your hiring needs, call Premier Virtual at (561) 717-9717 today.
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.
Recruiting Strategies for Sourcing Talent on Global Scale
The global labor force provides employers with a number of benefits such as access to a larger candidate audience and options for hiring remote employees at competitive wages. However, it isn’t without its challenges. For instance, today that employers target has changed dramatically. The world is your platform and tapping into the talent of the global workforce becomes important.
So, it stands to reason that recruitment strategies must be improved as well. There are 3 ways to ensure that you source the right candidates from the right talent pool:
- Be sure you target the right talent pool – the old “throw something against the wall until it sticks” mentality is not going to work when it comes to recruiting the best talent. Acquiring the best talent requires finding the right audience or talent pool. It may be the job boards for some employers while others might use social media platforms. If you do use social media, make sure that you’ve optimized your recruitment strategy based on your preferred target audience.
- Sell candidates on your company’s mission and vision – unless you have the time to waste trying to outbid other companies in wage warfare, the best plan of attack is selling your company’s mission and vision. Whenever you interview a candidate, be sure to promote your corporate dream in hopes of finding the right one for the job. Employer branding is a very effective recruitment tool and will help you communicate your company mission and vision to the candidates you attract, especially if they’re a good fit for your organization. Using our platform allows employers to host a ‘meet and greet’, or workshop to allow job seekers to get to know your organization more intimately before they apply for the position.
- The best strategy for sourcing job candidates is to involve a team in the hiring process – although an HR individual will make the final hiring decision, teams can help trimming the number of candidates down to the top 3, 4, or 5 individuals. Remember, each of those team members took the same journey before you hired them. Thus, they will likely find talented candidates for your company in the process. Offering your team virtual access to pre-screen candidates through the platform is another efficient advantage that reduces time and cost to hire.
These candidates could be contacts they met at the same previous job or fellow employees from that job. They might even have been college roommates at one time. The key is to create an environment where you can encourage team members to make hiring recommendations as well as one that pays attention to employee referrals. In so doing, you’ll help the team grow and increase its unity.
If you’re tired of jumping from one virtual recruitment platform to another and are looking for a more cost-effective, efficient means for targeting the best talent, Premier Virtual has the software you’re searching for. Call us today at (561) 717-9717.
5 Tips to Improve Online Recruitment
Over the past 3 years, remote work has become increasingly more prevalent among the labor force, not only here in the US, but on a global scale as well. As of last year (2021), nearly 5 million Americans were working remotely. When “shelter in place” or stay-at-home orders became the norm, the popularity of online job fairs and recruitment events spiked dramatically.
Whether you have an entrepreneurial start-up and are looking for a virtual recruitment platform to reduce company overhead or you have an established company and want to expand on your candidate recruitment options, Premier Virtual can help. Here are 5 helpful tips for effectively recruiting remote workers online:
- Determine what you’re looking for – online recruiting creates a never-ending pool of hiring choices. Unfortunately, you can’t just explore every option in the hopes of landing the most desirable candidates. Instead, you have to know exactly what you’re looking for where a candidate’s abilities, experience, and traits are concerned.
- Engage candidates in video interviews – this will enable you to connect with career candidates face-to-face during online virtual recruitment events. It will be easy to determine their communication skills, job fit, motivations, and personalities without having to schedule in-person interviews or pay for costly travel expenses.
- Finding the best talent involves asking the right questions – if your goal is finding the most outstanding talent, you have to ask the right questions such as:
- How did you cope while working under pressure?
- How did you handle working with an individual whose personality and work style differed from yours?
- How did you stay on track when you had to be prudent with your time?
- Make sure you always check a candidate’s references – statistics have revealed that job candidates aren’t always truthful. Believe it or not, roughly 30% of all job candidates admitted that they bent the truth or lied on their resumes. Always ask their former employers about their job performance, personality, and working style.
- Utilize social media platforms – the initial reason social media platforms were created was to enable families and friends to keep in touch with one another. Since then, it has evolved into numerous platforms for connecting with family members and friends as well as strangers, dating, joining movements for change, networking, and reading the news. Use these platforms to market your company to job candidates and assess them based on their social media activity.
For more information about our virtual event solutions, please call Premier Virtual at (561) 717-9717 today.
What’s the Future for Online Recruiting Events?
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020 triggered a tsunami of canceled concerts, exhibitions, and sporting events. Consequently, online recruiting events, were not an exception as career fairs were postponed and networking meet-ups were re-scheduled well into the future. Companies were forced to reassess their daily operations as longer periods of isolation were imminent. It seemed that life as we once knew it grew further out of reach.
At Premier Virtual, we’ve spent the past 3 years designing recruiting event software to bring the best talent to the right companies. If there’s one thing we’ve learned during that time, it’s that putting job fairs and recruiting events online will continue to be met with desire and excitement for companies and talented individuals as well. Here is what we’ve learned so far:
- Accessibility is the key – in terms of accessibility, the importance of online job fairs and recruitment events cannot be overstated. The most exciting aspect of developing our platform was the realization that we would be reaching a global audience that wasn’t restricted by disabilities, distances, or socioeconomic factors. This access opens the doors for diversity and inclusion as well. There is a much higher registration and attendance to these events which can be attributed to the comfort level job seekers have with virtual.
- Adapting and learning are the priorities – unfortunately, whenever you launch a new product, mistakes are going to happen. As with so many other aspects of life, we had to learn from those mistakes and for us, that meant learning how our new platform would work with real individuals in real-time. So, gathering feedback and learning became the #1 priority. It helps to connect directly with the target audiences and enhance the recruitment pool of participants. Now we offer an all-in-one virtual recruitment platform, we call our Virtual Recruitment Suite. It has evolved to be so much more than just hosting virtual events that you may not need much more than your ATS to attract and hire the best talent possible.
- Building the right platform is essential – we didn’t start from scratch when we built our online job fairs and recruitment event platform software. We already had nearly 10 years of hosting in-person job fairs, and we took all of that experience to build Premier Virtual. In fact, our first thought was that we built this platform, “by recruiters, for recruiters”, and that’s one of the things that separates us from so many other event platforms on the market. Still we did not rest there. We often conduct focus groups and webinars to ask our clients and prospects what they want most out of the platform, and we’re continually publishing new upgrades.
- Opportunities needed to be explored– when we started our business 10 years ago, we felt that recruitment organizers needed a technological shake-up in their industry. Granted, offline experiences are still invaluable. However, the “New Normal” we’re living under prohibits that approach from being as effective as it once was, and adding virtual makes them more efficient and effective. The fact that we anticipated this shift, and developed our platform before the pandemic has cleared away the fear factor to the extent that the future looks extremely bright for online career events.
The one thing that online recruitment events must do is enable individuals to make the connections they’re searching for. To learn how we can make that happen for you, call Premier Virtual today at (561) 717-9717.