Summary: In today’s Entrepreneur MBA podcast guest, Steve Edwards, the founder, and CEO of Premier Virtual speaks with Stephen Halasnik from Financing Solutions about virtual career fairs and how they are the new hiring standard. They talk about how virtual career fairs work and how it is more efficient than in-person job fairs. They talk about what makes virtual career fairs stand out.
Summary
How Do You Get Into This Industry?
Steve got into virtual job fairs when the candidates for regular job fairs started going down, affecting the companies so revenue plummets. He thought it was the future of job fairs because he didn’t have to travel state to state like regular job fairs and it was just easier. He eventually switched to 100% virtual job fairs and put everything into building his own platform. Because of the pandemic and the fact people couldn’t participate in regular career fairs, virtual career fairs started booming which definitely benefited Steve’s company.
Who Goes to These Virtual Career Fairs?
There is a wide range of people going to these job fairs. Usually, only people were at a low level for an in-person job fair because people at a high level didn’t want to be seen at a job fair. Now in a virtual job fair, there are people from a lot of different levels there. There can also be higher-level virtual job fairs too.
The main question that comes to mind is what do candidates want to see at a job fair. They want to see what a company does, the type of jobs a company has, and if they can submit their resume, etc. It is easier for someone looking for a job to find exactly what they want to do in a company and there are a variety of different candidates applying to these jobs which is not something that is seen often at an in-person job fair.
Aspects of a Virtual Career Fair
There are multiple aspects of the way a virtual career fair can work. One aspect of a virtual career fair is that they can help market the advertisement or consult the company on the best way to market for there to be candidates available. If the virtual career fair does the marketing for the company the cost will be different because they’re just not using their platform.
Now that the event is put out there for the world, the candidates can come to the virtual career fair and choose what city they want to go to no matter where they are from or they can do remote work. Then these candidates can choose the category of the job and then people can talk to the recruiter for that specific job. Candidates can go straight to the category they want and try to find a job in it. It is more efficient because both the candidate and the employer are not wasting their time and can instantly get in touch.
Resumes for Technology Career Fairs
The candidate has to have a profile that is more than a resume. They have to have a bio that is just like a cover letter that lists their prior job descriptions. The interviewing process is much simpler because it is less time-consuming. They need to answer interview questions that go into the live video interview the candidates have to do.
Each company can see the resume, bio, the experience, and they can watch their videos. If the company is interested, the candidate will be tracked and will be notified about the companies interested in them that want to schedule an interview.
What Can You Add to Virtual Career Fairs?
You can add a networking lounge which is exactly what Steve is adding. Candidates can go in and talk to each other to see which jobs are better fitted for each other. Steve is also upgrading the video resume piece which is a big piece of virtual career fairs. Video resumes didn’t have a market back then but now are gaining steam especially because of the pandemic. Companies are making their own virtual hiring rooms that people have access to 24/7. Virtual hiring rooms are very important moving forward because companies can use them as if it is their own internal job boards. Online job boards are the future because of their efficiency.
You should continue to make virtual career fairs efficient by adding new things and constantly upgrading things that become obsolete. For example, technology comes to mind when thinking about things to upgrade. There can be more analytics added to determine how long a candidate has been in the booth.
Remote Work and Culture
With more virtual career fairs there has to be remote work especially now more than ever in a time like this. Ever since the pandemic and people started quarantining, remote work has become a big part of our lives. It has become a new norm and it is here to stay especially when the pandemic is behind us in a year. The biggest challenge is how to manage people virtually. There need to be agendas for events instead of just zoom meetings to have people more engaged.
Culture is still a big need in a company even if people are working remotely. There need to be people that fit into the team. You need a variety of people from all races and religions for there to be a diverse culture. Some people perform differently based on the environment. For example, some people become lazy in a remote work environment and do better in person. This is not a good quality for an employee to have, you need to hire someone who is going to not be lazy regardless of the work situation they are in. You need someone who is a hard worker with a great attitude from the jump. Steve looks into those specific traits more than experience because he wants employees that fit into the company. People want to be able to work remotely from the comfort of their own home without having to move to places they don’t want to move to. That is exactly how virtual career fairs help with remote work.
About the Guest Steve Edwards, CEO of Premier Virtual
Steve Edwards is the founder and CEO of Premier Virtual which specializes in virtual career fairs. With their extremely easy user interface, hosts can have their event set up within minutes and ready to go live within 24 hours of selecting the date and time. Premier Virtual has perfected the virtual career fair by providing employers with completely customizable “booths” with the employer “Interactive Hiring Room” that allows the employer to text chat and use the internal video chat to invite the candidate to a live “real-time” interview.
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