How to Be the Big Recruiter on Campus
Adapt These 7 Steps for Maximum Campus Career Fair Victory:
1. Promote Prior to the Event
If you know you will be attending a career fair in the near future, tell the world! Promoting on social media can be the fastest and most effective way to get the word out there. Forty-two percent of companies say that candidate quality has improved thanks to social recruiting. Give the students something to look forward to beforehand, and they will know exactly which booth to beeline to when the floodgates open.
2. Be Prepared
What is the main reason for attending? Is it for the internship program? Is it for one or two entry-level positions? Part-time work? Identifying the purpose of the trip will help focus you when trying to weed out all of the walk-ups. Set your parameters early in order to filter out the number of students that automatically do not qualify.
3. Don’t Overdress
Students carefully choose what they wear to an interview. They want to convey how professional and put-together they are while still feeling comfortable enough to be themselves. You should put as much thought into what you wear as well! If your everyday attire is not a full formal suit, don’t wear that to a career fair. Represent the company culture through your effortless ensemble.With 89 percent of hiring failures attributed to poor cultural fit, a genuine representation through attire can be telling. Business causal is way less intimidating and far less off-putting than a full formal get-up.
4. Polish Your Booth
A clean and well-designed booth is a must for employer brand appeal and image. Fifty-six percent of professionals rank talent brand as the most important factor when picking a job. A logo banner and tablecloth are obvious necessities, but what about the giveaways? If you have small trinket collateral, great! Neatly present it on your table, but please do not create clutter. Less is more. The main focus should be on the company and you. Don’t congest the area with starbursts, flimsy highlighters, or useless USB drives.
5. Initiate Contact
Are you nervous? Doesn’t matter. The students are 10 times as nervous as you are. They just came from a 300-level course stressing how pivotal internships are to their futures. Many will be too intimidated or shy to initiate contact, so start building a rapport through easy questions. Inquire about their major, or ask if you could tell them about your company.
6. Mobilize
Fifty percent of career sites are not optimized for mobile and, only 20 percent of Fortune 500 companies have mobile career sites. If you want these idealistic near-graduates to believe you are the innovative company you just told them you were, your career site better be user-friendly when they log on while waiting for the inter-campus shuttle.
7. Follow Up
A well-received company at a career fair could have piles of potential candidates. Use this pool to reach out to ones that you have mentally tagged as strong leads. What to do after your software has scrubbed the influx of applicants, leaving you with your discards? Follow up with them too. A recent survey conduced by an CandEs reported that only 9 percent of applicants received emails notifying them they were not being considered for the job. At short, a 10-second message is transparent and proactive. It will not hurt your employer brand image as much as silence will.
Career fairs can be exciting, stressful, and fruitful. Your behavior contributes as much to the day’s success as the quality of the candidate pool does. Following these easy seven tips will guide you on your way to hiring glory at the campus career fair. Don’t you miss college?