Post-job Fair Strategies: Nurturing Relationships and Follow-up

After you’ve packed up the job fair materials and loaded them in the car, the real benefit of career fair participation gets started. Nurturing relationships and following up with candidates increases your talent pipeline and maximizes your ability to fill open positions. Not only that, failing to follow up could hurt recruitment more than you realize. A CareerBuilder report found 42% of candidates won’t apply for a job if they had a bad experience during the recruitment process, and 22% said they’d tell others not to apply to the company, either. That’s a lot of discontent that could impact your ability to hire. To prevent that, these post-job fair strategies can nurture relationships and help you make the most of your job fair investment.

Get Organized
Before you can effectively follow up, there should be a system in place for tracking candidates and communications. This could be a specialized talent management platform, your existing customer relationship management (CRM) software, or just a spreadsheet to track candidates’ contact info and date of follow-up. Make sure that all resumes, contact information, and notes are stored in a way that anyone on the team can access it, if needed.

Send Personalized Emails
All candidates are important, so reach out to all job fair attendees who visited your booth and provided contact information. Even if they aren’t a good fit today, they could be a perfect fit in the future. Express appreciation for their interest and participation in the event. If you noted any specific details from your conversation, add that to personalize the message.

Provide Useful Information
If you invited a candidate to apply online, remind them of the invitation and provide a link to the application. Many job candidates appreciate receiving additional information about the company before they apply, so include digital brochures, job descriptions, or links to relevant company information so they can learn more. Make it easy for them to apply or to forward the application to others.

Schedule Follow-up Conversations
If you had conversations with promising candidates at the job fair, schedule follow-up conversations or interviews as soon as possible. They may have talked with many recruiters at the event, so contact them within a day or two to increase your chance of hiring them before a competitor. These can be in-person, virtual, or phone meetings. Using a scheduling service like Calendly lets them choose a time that’s convenient for them and automatically syncs with your calendar.

Leverage Email
Consider setting up a targeted recruitment email campaign to nurture relationships with job fair attendees. When you initially reach out, ask if they’d like to be kept up to date on future job openings and career-related information. If they agree, send periodic career updates with job openings and relevant company updates. This helps you stay in touch and nurtures a connection.

Ask for Feedback
Seeking feedback from candidates is a good way to build a connection and help them feel engaged with the company. Ask for their thoughts on their experience at the job fair and your recruitment process. It demonstrates your commitment to improvement, that you value input, and it can refine your strategies for future events.

Measure and Adjust
Finally, evaluate whether your strategies are effective. Measure key metrics like email response rates, scheduled interviews, and hires made from job fair connections. This information will help you refine your strategy going forward.

Post-job fair engagement strategies set the stage for better recruitment results. To sign up for a community job fair in the Houston area, check the Workforce Solutions events calendar and contact jobs@wrksolutions.com or 713-688-6890 to sign up today!