Hosting a college career fair is a fantastic idea. It creates a win-win-win for the university, current students, and the local community. Planning one with strong college career fair ideas and activities is a great way to promote positive relationships between students, alumni, and local businesses.
Recruiters attend these events looking for the best and the brightest your school has to offer. Also, college students get to explore various career paths. Meanwhile, the networking between potential candidates and local employers provides ongoing relationships that will help the college showcase successful placement for graduates.
While the career fair has excellent potential, many traditional events lack engagement. To plan the most successful event for job seekers and potential employers alike, colleges can lean into these creative college career fair ideas designed to elevate the college career fair to the next level.
How Do You Attract Students to a Career Fair?
While it may seem obvious, successful career fairs depend on attendance. Getting students excited for in-person mingling is a foundational element to making the event succeed. Students are bombarded with opportunities for events and have to juggle their time between school, social activities, work, and recreation. So competing for their attention and attendance can be a challenge.
These strategies will help make sure that your event is well-attended and full of engaged, prepared participants. In turn, a successfully executed event helps ensure that recruiters will be eager to return for future events.
Marketing and Social Media Campaigns
Students need targeted marketing to showcase not only when the career fair is happening but also how it will directly benefit them. Use social media campaigns to generate awareness and excitement.
Help students feel prepared and confident with social media posts that include advice about what to wear and bring.
Remind students to:
- Wear business casual clothing
- Bring copies of their resumes
- Collect contact information and business cards
- Be prepared to make a positive first impression
Incentives and Giveaways
Incentivize attendance through giveaways that encourage student participation and engagement at the event. Providing swag bags and T-shirts can help get students excited about attending.
Turn the job search into a more interactive event with BINGO cards. Encourage students to hand out a specific number of resumes, give their elevator pitch to at least five people, or send a specified number of follow-up emails to potential employers.
Allow students to turn in their completed cards for opportunities to win additional swag for even more motivation.
Effective Promotion With Event Calendar Software
Make sure that your career fair is fully and seamlessly integrated into other campus events. This will make registration as smooth as possible. Event calendar software like Concept3D can enhance event promotion efforts and provide students with automatic notifications as the event draws near.
It can also help event planners by using registration information to get a sense of student interests. Then they can ensure there are career fair booths and potential employers that match students’ goals.
8 College Career Fair Ideas to Increase Engagement for Students and Employers
Getting students to attend is a foundational part of a successful college career fair. But once you have them at the event, it will take creativity and innovation to maximize engagement.
Implement these college career fair ideas to ensure both potential employers and participating students get the most out of the experience.
1. Connect With Alumni in Key Industry Roles
Alums are an invaluable part of a successful career fair event. These former students can provide networking opportunities to help students find their next career move. From internships to job interview tips, alums can deliver the kinds of experiences college students need to be prepared for their future professions.
By speaking with alums, your current students will be able to see themselves in these career paths with a newfound authenticity and excitement. They’ll also make meaningful connections that can provide them with mentorship and just-in-time advice that helps shape their future careers and lay the groundwork for more involved alumni-student interactions like those in a formal mentorship program.
2. Provide Food and Beverage Booths
A career fair is a formal event that carries a degree of formality. But you should also aim to promote social interactions and more relaxed conversations.
Food and beverage booths dispersed throughout the job fair can help potential employees and potential employers engage with one another more authentically. This is also an excellent time to leverage partnerships with local eateries by bringing in food trucks.
These off-the-cuff interactions allow students to learn more about company culture. Then they’ll really get a sense of their potential future with the recruiters’ businesses.
3. Collaborate With Influential Student Groups
Student groups with a strong campus presence should be an integral part of your career fair. Sororities and fraternities (of both the social and academic varieties) often have career goals as part of their mission statements.
Student groups organized around shared academic interests (such as a debate club or business club) are a great source of engaged, informed participants with specific shared career goals.
Invite these student groups to collaborate during the event by hosting lead-up events like mock job interviews or resume workshops. As a bonus, their members’ attendance will help promote the event and spread the word around campus.
4. Host a Speed Networking Session
In-depth conversations with a potential employer can be one successful outcome of a career fair. But many students will benefit from simply getting a better sense of their possible career options and navigating a recruiting event with finesse. So your college career fair ideas should accommodate that.
Many students will be intimidated by approaching potential employers without a clear script for how to proceed. This is where pre-designed events with limited durations can help promote more engagement.
A speed networking session can be a great way to give students a structured opportunity to:
- Meet many employers
- Practice their elevator pitch
- Gain insight into what potential fields may be in their future
Wake Forest University’s STEM Slam used this model to great success.
5. Offer a Mobile-Friendly Event Experience
Many potential employers may still be handing out physical business cards. But a modern-day career fair needs to be mobile-friendly and smartphone-ready.
Use QR codes for quick access to career center resources, event schedules, and employer information. Provide networking tools students can readily access on their personal devices to ensure that the connections made at the career fair extend beyond the event.
If you’ve created gamified elements, you can make the BINGO cards or scavenger hunt lists interactive online so that students can submit their completed work at the end of the event.
6. Create a Career Fair Scavenger Hunt
Some students—especially those attending their very first career fair—may need some encouraging college career fair ideas to get them interacting more fully with the recruiters and other participants.
Gamify the situation through scavenger hunts and other challenges built around maximizing engagement and taking advantage of multiple types of career development available at the event.
Building this gamified system into a mobile experience can provide a sense of friendly competition among students while also generating more buzz for the event itself.
7. Host Skill-Building Workshops
Career services can take advantage of student interest in a career fair. They can give targeted, relevant, and immediately applicable workshops that help build career skills. Students will be more likely to participate in these skills-building events when they know they have a concrete opportunity to put those skills to use at the career fair.
These events can be hosted in the weeks leading up to the fair, during the career fair itself, and even after it ends as students follow up with potential employers. Invite students to workshops that hone interview techniques, finetune resumes, and encourage professional networking etiquette.
You might also leverage social and academic support groups to pull from their areas of expertise. Fashion-forward groups could host business casual clothing workshops (like the Idaho State University College of Business did), while writing-focused groups could organize proofreading workshops for cover letters.
8. Segment the Fair Into Industry Zones
Most college students have a clear sense of where they’re heading in their careers—especially when those paths are defined by their majors. Use your college’s existing discipline structures to divide the job fair into industry-related zones.
When students can immediately and easily identify the career paths that are more relevant to their studies, they’ll feel more comfortable engaging in conversations with the recruiters at those booths. Dividing the event into industry zones can also help manage traffic flow and ensure logistical efficiency for participants.
This discipline-specific division will also help ensure that potential employers connect with engaged participants interested in their fields. This, in turn, makes it more likely that they’ll return for future career fairs, as well.
Elevate Your College Career Fair With Concept3D
Make sure that your college career fair is set up for success, from promotion to registration to the event itself and beyond, with these college career fair ideas. Concept3D provides unique solutions for college campuses that make event planning efficient and smooth. Explore Concept3D’s event calendar software provides marketing tools, easy registration, and a clear way to communicate with participants before, during, and after your career fair.
If you’re ready to take your career fair to the next level, set up a demo with Concept3D today!