We constantly try to challenge the status quo of international recruitment and employer branding. We are in 2017, and engagement between employer and candidate is rapidly shifting from just conventional job postings to meaningful engagement.

That’s why we hosted our first Virtual Career Fair back in September 2016 - you can read about how it went here.

Developing the Graduateland Virtual Career Fair

Concluding on the event itself, as well as on the excitement it caused among candidates and employers, we felt confident that we validated the concept in the market.

Big strategy meeting, new discussions about priorities and visions, movement of post-its, and before we knew it our product roadmap had changed.

The native Graduateland Virtual Career Fair was suddenly sitting on the top of the list. The king is dead, hail the king. 

Having a good feel of the recruitment cycles across the major companies across Europe we knew that the ideal timing for the first fair would be already in February. That put the design and product team under quite some pressure - first to come up with a solution that should be better than those of our competitors, but also to do so in due time for it to be delivered to the tech team.

We have successfully managed the first part. We got substantial feedback after the first virtual career fair, and it was clear how to improve. Second, the career fair will now be seamlessly integrated in the university career portals across Europe, causing a minimum of friction for candidates who wish to join.

Third, extensive user tests with both candidates and companies have ensured that people actually understand how the system should work.

That’s where we are now - the tech guys are pounding on their keyboards in a pace that makes Elton John look like a grade schooler at piano practise.

Let's take a look at the latest high fidelity designs. Keep in mind that the text below is just 'dummy text'.

We are building the online career fair stands atop the Employer Profiles, so the main features of showcasing the employer are already there:

The online employer stand

As you can see we are quickly introducing jobs that fit the profile of the visiting candidate. We learned from our first virtual career fair that having relevant positions online was a huge influencer in terms of sparking interest in the employer. Not surprisingly, jobs are much more concrete than intangible employer branding. Naturally, the relevance of the jobs is defined by the preferences and experiences of the visitor. Some visitors will not get any relevant suggestions, and can get suggestions to engage with other employers.

The backbone of the chat functionality is built on the inbox system, providing a convenient overview of ongoing conversations, and quick access points to the full candidate profiles etc.

The built-in chat module

In the right hand column you'll see some quick suggestions of what to do in case of cueing-time at a popular employer. A few minutes research prior to the chat session might actually be quite valuable.

Among the input we got from our feedback sessions was that employers experienced too many profiles initiating the conversation with ‘So what do you have for someone like me?’

Interestingly enough, we also heard from many candidates that it was difficult to know how to initiate a conversation - what should the initial chat be about?

This turned out to be an interesting challenge. How to help steer the chat into a meaningful conversation that could lead to a valuable relationship.

We decided to design the user flow in a manner that would ensure that the candidate made an active choice about what to talk about. As you perhaps noted on the first screenshot we built a decision tree into the stand, but if the candidate dives into the chat straight away the choice still has to be made.

The conversation decision tree

If the 'Job opportunities' topic is chosen (yes, it's misspelt in the screenshot, our designer is even British...!), what specific job should the conversation be about?

The outcome here is that it will be easier for the recruiters to determine among themselves who should claim the chat and reply.

Overall these tweaks should result in much better questions, a better personal conversation and connection, and ultimately an overall better experience.

Rounding off

We will be paying close attention to which employers decide to participate, what positions they will bring to the career fair, and then make sure that the right segments of students and graduates will attend. We are confident that we can get the right candidates to join, after all, we are quite good at user oriented marketing.

Should your company join?

If you think that your company would find it interesting to reach talented students and graduates across Europe - let us know! The sooner you join the more time we have to build you an awesome online stand, communicate to your followers, and tailor the audience of the career fair to your needs.

What does it cost to participate?

The price for a virtual company stand is €2.000.

Are you interested in getting more info from us?

You can find the main points of the Virtual Career Fair neatly summarised to download here