Five Ways to Use Mobile at Your Next Career Fair or College Event

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

The end of summer is upon us, and with the changing seasons comes the time of year when recruiters pack up their branded pens, water bottles and post it notes and head to campus career fairs. It is officially college and campus recruiting season. The next few weeks and months will be filled with time spent dragging our campus career fair banners and stands while balancing the arm loads of career fair swag and candidate resumes. It’s exciting, tiring and a perfect opportunity to incorporate new tactics into your strategy.  

As technology driven as our lives are, most recruiters aren’t making great use of it in their campus and college recruiting, meaning that there’s room for improvement even in this familiar realm. Mobile can be a great way to engage college students both on and off campus, whether you are attending an in-person event or want to continue the conversation with your top college candidates afterwards.

Take a look at these five ways you can use mobile at your next career fair or college event to make life easier, engage students and grads more, and be a better campus and college recruiter.

Mobile video

Mobile video is the future of recruiting, so make use of it with an audience that is sure to be immersed in the technology already. Whether you hold live conversations and communications using Periscope, YouTube or Meerkat, video is a great way to share your employer brand and invite your candidate pool to learn more after the career fair. Invite candidates to follow you on these platforms right at your booth and then be prepared to stream shortly after.

TalentCatch

Using TalentCatch, you can have a new candidate enter their information on your mobile device, which takes less than a minute from start to finish. You’re not carrying around resumes or writing info on the back of a business card, and they can be automatically added to your talent network. This one is a no brainer.

SMS text messaging

Many football coaches working to earn commitment from their college recruits use text message as the main form of communication with them. Take a lesson from their playbook and do the same. With an average read rate of 97 percent, it’s a great way to stay in touch with your candidate pool.

Snapchat

I promise you this talent pool is using Snapchat on a daily basis, so join the party and invite your candidates to connect, share stories and learn more about you by tapping into the power of disappearing photos and video. Be sure to incorporate Instagram into your campus recruitment social channels too.

Email

If you think email is old school, you may not be considering the fact that it’s a big part of mobile use. According to Adestra, 45 percent of email opens occur on mobile, 36 percent on desktop and 19 percent in a webmail client. It’s a simple, effective way to stay in touch with your potential candidates.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.