Hosting Effective Hybrid Career Fairs and Recruiting Events

Four former college and university recruiters launched CF+ in 2012 based on the shared certainty proprietary software could enhance employer and job seeker interactions during in-person recruiting events.

More than nine years later, millions of applicants have connected with tens of thousands of employers during dozens of different types of recruiting programs.

We’re empowering event organizers to improve outcomes for their job seekers by continually improving our enterprise recruiting software with host, employer, and candidate feedback.

Our purpose at Career Fair Plus (CF+) is to save event organizers time while improving outcomes for their job seekers. It’s gratifying listening to our customers then providing career fair technology and assorted solutions that solve real problems.

Our eGuide, Hybrid Career Fairs & Recruiting Events, is your free portable guide to everything you always wanted to know about hybrid recruiting programs but didn’t know whom to ask!

Make Hybrid Recruiting Work for You

You’ve likely hosted multiple in-person career fairs, and if you organized recruiting events in 2020, then you probably planned at least one online event, too. And with the return of in-person programming and the ongoing demand for virtual fairs, hybrid recruiting is increasingly popular. 

In 2020, we pivoted a decade’s worth of in-person recruiting experience and user-focused technology into a virtual job fair platform. This page introduces hybrid career fairs, the pros and cons of these events, and steps to maximize the benefits for your candidates and recruiters.

What is a Hybrid Career Fair?

Hybrid career fairs merge the benefits of virtual and socially distanced in-person events into one safe, personal, and cost-effective recruiting experience. CF+ organizes these programs in one of three ways:

• Different Days where participants choose to attend the virtual day, the in-person day, or both.
• Same Day-Different Times where the virtual and in-person events occur on the same day but do not overlap. Participants choose to attend virtual, in-person, or both.
• Same Day-Same Time is a one-day event where participants choose to attend only virtually or only in-person.

These programs are delivered in person and on custom platforms accessed via websites or mobile apps. Program hosts, employers, and candidates benefit from various features depending on the technology and type of hybrid event.

The software also informs what other types of hybrid recruiting you can produce besides career fairs. The more robust your recruiting events solutions, the more ways you can facilitate positive candidate and employer engagement.

Who Hosts What Type of Online Recruiting Events?

Leaders in multiple sectors choose a wide variety of in-person, online, or hybrid events to optimize their recruiting funnel without negatively impacting quality, personal interactions, or cost.

Some Pros & Cons of Hybrid Career Fairs

Hybrid recruiting provides several advantages over offering only in-person or virtual events because they:

• Encourage preparation and potentially higher quality conversations with advance access to employer and candidate profiles
• Accommodate institutional and municipal social distancing guidelines
• Deliver immediate and useful post-event feedback: Learn engagement levels, assess customer satisfaction and analyze deeper metrics to determine ROI
• Allow hosts to drive traffic and share announcements with live communications

And these programs also present some challenges. These potential hurdles are manageable, of course, especially if you know what to look for ahead of time:

• Technology:  We could probably stop right there, and we’d all understand the possible issues. Relying on technology for your recruiting is the same risk as any other business activity dependent on the internet or a computer. Which means everything’s likely to work just fine.
• Limited Participation:  Candidates and employers might be unable to attend both online and in-person components, depending on how their availability aligns with the hybrid structure.
• Learning Curves:  There’s a one-time learning curve with a new platform. However, if you choose the right partner, they’ll support hosts, candidates, and employer teams before, during, and after the event.

Why should I host a hybrid recruiting event?

Hybrid recruiting increases participation by accommodating varying employer and participant preferences.

• Quickly adjust to fluctuating public health guidelines
• Enhance connections by enabling employers and candidates to engage in their preferred in-person or virtual format
• Accelerate time to hire
• Eliminate event day scheduling surprises
• Expand the talent pool with higher participation levels
• Showcase employer branding twice: on-site and in virtual profiles

To maximize these benefits, choose a robust hosting platform with features such as:

What type of hybrid event is best for me?

Great, you’re ready for a CF+ hybrid recruiting event!

But which hybrid model? Well, we can help you decide. Let’s start by reviewing the three different ways CF+ enables you to customize your hybrid recruiting for your target attendees, staffing resources, and budget. You can host:

• Programs on Different Days where participants choose to attend the virtual day, the in-person day, or both.
• Activities on the Same Day at Different Times where the virtual and in-person events occur on the same day but do not overlap. Participants choose to attend virtual, in-person, or both.
• Events on the Same Day at the Same Time where participants choose to attend only virtually or only in-person.

Now a few questions to sort out which of these structures is best when…

Do you have the planning and support staff to offer two different events on two different days?

If yes, then choosing Different Days maximizes your opportunity to meet varying institutional and municipal guidelines by hosting in-person and virtual events on separate days.

If no, then consider offering both on-site and online events on the Same Day.

Pro tip: you can offer the two components of your hybrid event a week apart; they don't have to be on consecutive days.

If yes, then choose Same Day, Same Time, and CF+ will support the setup, registration, and day-of activities for both formats simultaneously.

Pro tip: Consider offering a quiet space where in-person attendees can join their virtual meetings.

If no, then choose Same Day, Different Time, and we’ll help produce your on-site and online recruiting events separately, typically one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Pro tip: Schedule enough rest and snack time between events to regroup and refuel!

How do I plan a hybrid recruiting event?

Trust your experience.

You’ve done this before (even if you’re new to hybrid recruiting).

Everything you need to know about hosting a hybrid career fair you already learned planning on-site and virtual events. It’s a similar process made easier with time-saving automation, customizable schedules, multiple formats, and a bunch of easy-going, happy people at CF+ ready to help!

Check out Check-in & Analytics and Resume Drop!

As the saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” And in this case, the return of in-person recruiting combined with the popularity of virtual events is the necessity that’s shifting career event hosts to hybrid recruiting. So, if you're looking to increase your format options, choose a hosting partner whose technology platform offers more than chat queues or virtual profiles.

You know CF+ supports your hybrid events. We also help you host socially distant, on-site career fairs and recruiting events with Check-in & Analytics, Resume Drop, and one-on-one meeting scheduling.

And the CF+ platform elevates your ongoing virtual recruiting.

Our software is easy to use, and we work as hard as our customers to deliver productive, rewarding, and cost-efficient recruiting events. Career Fair+ is uniquely positioned to help you build in-person, virtual, and hybrid career fairs.

Schedule a call with one of our super-friendly problem solvers who can explain it all. (That’s a thank you rhyme for reading this whole blog!)