How a recruitment event could support your talent attraction goals.

How a recruitment event could support your talent attraction goals.

As an internal recruiter, HR professional, or business owner it’s not news to you that finding and securing candidates for your roles has become harder than ever.

The typical approach to recruitment; job board adverts and generic social media posts doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. But, fear not! By employing tools from your recruitment armoury you can gain the upper hand; such as improving (or creating) your employer brand, developing a strong employee value proposition aka EVP AND, recruitment events.

This blog explores what a recruitment event is, different types of events, some examples of what successful events have in common, and how to run a recruitment event yourself- essentially all you need to know to start proactively engaging with candidates on and offline.

What is a recruitment event?

Recruitment events can look different depending on the outcome.

Whilst the overall goal is to hire someone, there’s a long game at play, brand awareness and relationship building between prospective employer and employee. You can think of a recruitment event as a networking opportunity - a great way for both of you to get to know one another without the commitment of an application or interview.

Or conversely it can be ALL about hiring. The day could serve as a great way to get all the right people in the right place, at the same time. Whether that be a more formal assessment like structure, or a hybrid approach of a more informal event mixed with the opportunity to take their application to the next step should they be ready to take the next step.

At their core most recruitment events are held to attract new potential candidates to a location (typically, and ideally where they’d be working whether that be hybrid, flexible or remote!) to allow candidates and hiring managers a chance to engage and discuss opportunities. Recruitment events serve as an excellent tool for attraction and yield high application and offer conversions.

What makes a successful recruitment event?

A successful recruitment event has a few core staples which includes the following:

Stakeholder buy-in. Recruitment should be high up on the agenda of everyone in your business, and therefore easy for key stakeholders and hiring managers to commit when it comes to the preparation and delivery. Without this, you could do a great job attracting candidates to your event but the right people could fail to turn up, which puts you at risk of ruining that all-important first impression.

Clear and united goals. Assuming stakeholders and hiring managers are on board, you’ll need a clear and agreed understanding of what you want to achieve. Is it a better or greater awareness of your business amongst the candidate pool? Is it to manage multiple candidate applications through assessments as a way of expediting the hiring process? Will it focus on a certain skill set or level of experience…? Defining a solid and shared goal will provide a framework to apply everything else to.

The RIGHT candidates. Based on your united goals this should be straightforward. Only invite and aim advertising campaigns to those you wish to engage with for this event. Go too broad and you’ll struggle to deliver the key messages and get the right people talking to the right managers.

At Optamor we assess candidates prior to sending them details of the event to ensure they meet the criteria. Hiring managers review details prior to event kick-off to allow them time to identify key talent to engage with on the day.

An agenda, of sorts. There could be refreshments, presentations, tours and assessments - decide the look and feel of your event and be sure to map the day out and be sure everyone is aware of what’s happening and when. Signposting or collateral in any ‘goody bags’ is a great way to ensure both candidates and assisting staff are clued up at all times.

The same hymn sheet. There’s a lot of talk about the importance of culture and benefits ( your EVP) - it’s pretty important, especially when you’re trying to attract candidates. So, if you’re hosting a recruitment event be sure that each of the employees attending is clued up on the key benefits and values of working at your company and confident about sharing their positive experiences. This SHOULD be organic and something you don’t have to force - but it could be a good idea to gauge how your colleagues attending the event would answer some of the key Q’s prospective candidates may have on the day.

As you’ll know, Optamor (that’s us) is a talent solutions business. Recruitment events are one of many solutions we deliver to our customers. If you’re interested in running a recruitment event and would like our help - get in touch.