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.
