5 Smart Ways Talent Acquisition is Leveraging Virtual Recruiting Events to Attract, Retain and Support Employees

Among the many demands talent acquisition teams have had to adapt to quickly is the need to shift their hiring practices from face-to-face recruiting events and onsite interviews to an end-to-end virtual recruiting process.

During the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic, GR8 People partnered with its customers to assist them in redeploying current employees to meet extremely critical hiring needs. Since then, our customer success team has guided a broad range of organizations through their transition to virtual recruiting and, in the process, seen firsthand how valuable virtual recruiting events are to addressing today’s complex talent challenges.

In large part, this is because once the right tools are in place, executing an array of virtual event formats becomes far more manageable. For example:

#1. Information Sessions

Information sessions are helping organizations both establish and maintain employer brand awareness among key target audience segments, whether they’re used to introduce high-potential talent to who you are and why employees love working at your company or to share essential information with prospective candidates regarding how the company is keeping employees safe during COVID-19.

This format is also being used by campus recruiters to stay connected to college students through seminar-styled sessions designed to bring the employment experience to life, such as “meet the experts” or “get to know a recent new grad hire.” Another recent approach used by both healthcare and manufacturing customers has been to provide virtual tours of facilities after a candidate registers for an event. In industries like these, facility tours are a critical part of the overall candidate journey.

#2. Internal Mobility Events

As TA is well aware, internal mobility remains one of the most effective ways to retain and engage current employees, and virtual events play a central role here, too. Recruiters are achieving success by hosting virtual events exclusively for current employees. These events introduce existing talent to vital roles at the company and career paths that employees may not have considered previously while sharing details about next steps for those who want to pursue an opportunity.

#3: Recruiter-specific Events

The tools and built-in automations available through a Virtual Recruiting Event Solution are also making it possible for recruiters to not simply execute company-wide events for larger audiences—they’re proving helpful in managing the high workloads many enterprise talent acquisition teams are still experiencing.

In this scenario, recruiters create their own “event landing page” and “invite” their target candidates to visit, an action that triggers a series of pre-screening questions for initial assessment. “Attendees” who are qualified are automatically invited to self-schedule a screening interview. The result is a systemized process that keeps things moving forward by allowing recruiters to easily streamline tasks and capture important candidate data.

#4. Active Hiring Events

Here, the focus is on promoting current opportunities and connecting hiring managers with their next great employee. Virtual interview days give candidates an insider’s view of a “day-in-the-life” within the associated hiring department, while one-on-one video conversations with hiring managers are scheduled throughout the day to convert qualified attendees into final candidates and, ultimately, new hires.

Also, given that applicant volume will only continue to rise in the coming months, recruiters are finding that building pre-screening capabilities with knockout questions into their virtual hiring events process saves time by cutting down on the number of profiles the team needs to review. Plus, they can then invite only the strongest matches to self-schedule a screening interview, ensuring the best possible hiring experience for each candidate.

#5: Furlough and Offboarding Events

For organizations faced with the unfortunate need to furlough or lay off employees, the ability to host events that offer support to those affected helps demonstrate the organization’s employer brand values and commitment to employee well-being. In the case of furloughed team members, private virtual events give talent acquisition a means to gather updates on employment status and availability to return, delivering recruiters much-needed insight into the supply of talent against projected demand.

Offboarding events, such as a series of webinars that include instruction on everything from resume writing and building a personal brand online to job search strategies and preparing for an interview, provide valuable assistance to laid-off workers who can benefit from these types of resources during a difficult time of transition.

As varied as the event formats described above are, one consistent theme has emerged—significant benefits are being realized well beyond the versatility of virtual event recruiting. From greater access to in-demand talent to improved candidate engagement outcomes and hiring process efficiencies, virtual recruiting events represent a flexible, long-term talent strategy that can be leveraged both today and as talent acquisition continues to navigate the path forward.