Canadian HR Reporter

N E W S 12 www.hrreporter.com Campus recruitment takes virtual route amid pandemic With in-person recruitment a near impossibility due to COVID-19, on-campus job fairs for students are shifting to the virtual environment for the foreseeable future — and may become more accepted as the norm, finds John Dujay what the various industries are looking like. Of course, I think the situation depends a lot on the field; we know that some industries are actually in peak demand and trying to get more support and help, especially for essential services." 'Catalyst for change that was bound to happen' Turazo, a virtual recruiting platform provider based in San Francisco, offers a career fair experience that is 100-per- cent digital, for employers to connect with students. "Every campus is shut down, internship programs are being shut down and job offers are being rescinded, so we decided on our own to say, 'Hey, look, we have great networks of professionals in companies who may be hiring now,'" says Peter Cipollone, cofounder and CEO of Turazo. "A lot of [employers] are going through a really bad time and COVID is basically a catalyst for accelerating a change that was bound to happen, especially around going to see a lot more of this even after we come through the COVID crisis," she says. UBC embraces virtual environment For the University of British Columbia (UBC), the coronavirus pandemic is an impetus to further its efforts with students. The school has been running one to two virtual recruiting sessions per week that involve recruiters hosting a webinar, says Kim Kiloh, director at the Centre for Student Involvement & Careers at UBC in Vancouver. "Students can watch it either synchronously in the moment or, in most cases, it's also archived and they can come back to get the content later." The school already had plans to offer recruiting events virtually to engage a wider audience virtually, she says. "We had our first virtual session in the pipeline for March 2020, which we had been working on for several months, so it was very fortunate in terms of its timing and delivery." For university students, virtual career fairs are becoming a good way to connect with employers looking to hire, says Kiloh. " S t u d e n t s h a v e b e e n r e a l l y appreciative of the opportunity to still connect with recruiters. They've been appreciative of recruiters also prioritizing the time and being able to offer some insight and advice around campus recruiting and job fairs that are just not productive enough." The older concept of a careers weekend where employers fly recruiters out to different campuses is an inefficient process for everybody, he says. "It's expensive, the return on investment is not great. And it also it tends to favour the very, very tippy top brands. So, for the next echelon down, which are fantastic companies, this is a way for them to bring the process, number one, to their brand; number two, to make it super convenient and scalable both for their students and their team. And also, just to increase the quality of the assessment data that they get in a much more efficient way." Another benefit? Quality time. Typically, whether it's a campus event or a regional event, an employer working a booth next to a competitor will have only about 90 seconds to talk to a potential candidate, says Cipollone. "With the [virtual] approach that we've taken, these are meaningful conversations," he says. "You're going to talk to somebody for 15 or 20 minutes to be able to go in depth and really give both sides the opportunity to meaningfully assess, 'Hey, is this for me?'" "This has accelerated the acceptance of [virtual hiring] and we're going to see a lot more even after we come through the COVID crisis." Mary Barroll, TalentEgg WITH COVID-19 putting face-to- face job interviews on hold, many in-person campus career fairs are also being sidelined. As a result, many employers are actively pursuing digital options, spurred by the coronavirus outbreak, according to Mary Barroll, president of TalentEgg, an employment agency in Toronto. "It's a big deal right now and I think everyone is exploring it. I've heard from employers that they're actively looking at the various vendors out there who provide those digital services. This has just accelerated the acceptance of it across a lot of industries and we're MTU SEES IMPRESSIVE RESULTS WITH 2018 VIRTUAL JOB FAIR 80% number of participating students interested in attending another virtual career fair 58% number of employers that tagged attendees for actionable next steps (pipeline, screen further or interview). 100% number of employers that would participate in the MTU job fair again Sources: Michigan State University (MTU), Brazen

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