What is a "virtual" job/career fair?
There are many different ways to
organize a virtual career fair. They could be run during an actual
brick-and-mortar career fair. They could be simply a live presentation
of what employers are looking for. A career fair could be a chat room
where employers interview and ask questions of potential
candidates. Allow your staff to be creative and try new ideas.
There are a few organizations that use web technology to host career fairs. Companies such as Directmagazine, California Job Journal, CareersRN, and UNISFAIR. UNISFAIR uses a very creative implementation of an online environment based on Second Life. Some organizations simply use a job board and call it a virtual job fair, however, if you want to be more sophisticated there are other resources available.
What resources would someone need to have a virtual career fair?
One popular tool is GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar (paid services). In this article I'm going to show you a very brief overview of how to set up a GoToMeeting virtual job fair and give you some links to follow for a more detailed tutorial. Other companies offering similar tools are WebX and ZohoMeeting.
A quick note on verbage
Many people prefer to use the term "Career Fair" over "Job Fair." This is a personal preference but know that for marketing purposes, the term "job fair" is searched for 9 times more often. So when you market on the internet, know that if people are typing in a specific term you want them to find your website.
Many people prefer to use the term "Career Fair" over "Job Fair." This is a personal preference but know that for marketing purposes, the term "job fair" is searched for 9 times more often. So when you market on the internet, know that if people are typing in a specific term you want them to find your website.
A quick tutorial on seting up GoToMeeting as your career fair venue
Set up your GoToMeeting space and invite employers to register. As in any brick-and-morter job fair, you have to pre-register your employers and make sure that they understand the venue that you are promoting.
You'll need to decide in advance how long each employer will get to present their company and the jobs they want to fill. Let's say you have 12 employers from one industry and you give them 10 minutes each to describe the company and the positions they want to fill. This gives you a two hour industry-specific career fair in this example.
Attendees can either view this presentation on their computers, or to call in to a special phone number that GoToMeeting will give you to listen to the presentation. After the virtual career fair is completed, attendees will be able to view the entire presentation again as a streaming broadcast on their media player. Each employer presentation should include contact and application information.
The employers can use any programs on their computer including the internet as part of their presentations. By setting each employer as "organizer" during his or her allotted time, everyone who is watching from a computer can view the desktop of the organizer along with the presentation they are giving.
Here's a basic rundown of the process you'll need to set up your virtual career fair:
You'll need to decide in advance how long each employer will get to present their company and the jobs they want to fill. Let's say you have 12 employers from one industry and you give them 10 minutes each to describe the company and the positions they want to fill. This gives you a two hour industry-specific career fair in this example.
Attendees can either view this presentation on their computers, or to call in to a special phone number that GoToMeeting will give you to listen to the presentation. After the virtual career fair is completed, attendees will be able to view the entire presentation again as a streaming broadcast on their media player. Each employer presentation should include contact and application information.
The employers can use any programs on their computer including the internet as part of their presentations. By setting each employer as "organizer" during his or her allotted time, everyone who is watching from a computer can view the desktop of the organizer along with the presentation they are giving.
Here's a basic rundown of the process you'll need to set up your virtual career fair:
- Visit GoToMeeting and sign up.
- Setup your meeting space.
- Invite employers to register for the event.
- Advertise your career fair allowing attendees to pre-register.
- Send invitations to career fair attendees.
- Have your job seekers download the GoToMeeting software.
- Host your virtual fair on GoToMeeting.
- Post the link to download/view the career fair on your website.
- Watch this video playlist on how to use GoToMeeting.
- See the citrix quickrefs at the NTAP website for helpful resources.
- View this really informative 27 page ebook on designing virtual career fairs by Ramesh Sambasivan
Contributor Bryan Lundeen works for the Solano County Workforce Investment Board
I want to suggest you try http://www.showdocument.com - its an alternative tool for gotomeeting that allows document sharing and web meeting in real-time. all the participants in the session see each others' drawing, highlights, etc. It is free and requires no installation.
Posted by: web meeting josh | September 08, 2009 at 07:31 AM
It will be helpful for you to know that Gotomeeting is actually free software. I downloaded here at no charge: http://www.bestads.com/xzclf/1/posts/7/56/75264.html
Posted by: Richard Lewis | October 20, 2009 at 11:23 AM
You may want to consider the webinar solution from RHUB (www.rhubcom.com), which is the only one in the market that can guarantee attendance. It is delivered in appliances and cost saving is another factor to consider.
Posted by: John | October 27, 2009 at 02:31 AM
While I am not sure how you can ever guarantee attendance as the above comment suggests, I do think there is a great idea in this article. I have never considered using remote access as an interview or 'job fair' tool, but I see some real value in the idea. I will talk to my main interviewer and see if he feels the same way.
Posted by: Remote Access | March 17, 2010 at 01:23 PM