On-Site-Recruiting nowadays: hundreds of leads but no applicants
In the past 5 years I experienced many career fairs. We flew from the MIT in Cambridge to Beijing University in China to recruit highly talented graduates. Surprisingly, we realized that all these events mainly served the purpose of employer branding instead of talent acquisition. This was the reason why it was so difficult for us to measure the ROI of our recruitment efforts. We generated hundreds of leads, but the majority of these contacts dropped out of the funnel for no plausible reason.
JOB FAIRS NO LONGER WORK
This harsh experience brought my team and me to a point where we decided to focus our recruitment efforts on the hot spots of graduate life. We wanted to dive into the “natural habitat” of a student’s life. So we began visiting universities and departments to meet with students on site. We bypassed career events and career centers because in times with great demand for IT professionals the tide has turned. Excellent students pursuing their degree in science or engineering do no longer attend career fairs to find a job.
Offer a signficant value instead of sweats and pencils
Our finding was that in an employee directed market graduates can constantly choose from a huge variety of career opportunities. So why should they waste their precious time at events that offer almost no value for them. At career fairs companies mainly offer brochures and job ads but in most of the cases an exhausting promotion marathon, including standard questions about the company’s business, is all they get. This is why a career fair, at best, could be only the first step in a recruitment process. It does not help companies fill vacant positions with great efficiency.
Meet your target audience at eye level
So why not make a difference? That’s why we added certain value to our events to avoid non-technical discussions and to streamline our recruitment process. We knew that 22% of the IT professionals getting in touch with recruiters feel a lack of experience with their counterpart (http://www.jobnews.at/it-spezialisten-wollen-recruiting-auf-augenhoehe/). So, our solution was to bring professional content to our events to help our target audience acquire knowledge or just have a great time talking about stuff they really like.
Meet your target audience at eye level
What made the difference? The main point is that we met on an equal footing. Instead of investing our money in a four sqm booth for an easy four-digit number we offered a specialized training for IT professionals. Our workshops combined gamification elements, professional content and serious discussions about software development, etc. That provided students with real insights into corporate culture and an efficient recruitment experience for our HR team.
Your Takeaway: Offer something valuable instead of wasting time at a career fair
Summary: Graduate recruiting can only work efficiently on an equal footing. This works best if companies add a certain value to their recruitment events that can provide students with e.g. insights into corporate culture.