Context
In November 2022, the University of Huddersfield invited three other regional institutions to collaborate together to deliver an online ‘Mega’ Careers Fair. The aims of the fair were to:
- work in partnership with regional HE institutions;
- provide wider choice for students by attracting more employers than one institution could do alone and thus boost student engagement;
- assist busy employers by bringing four institutions’ students to one event.
As the fair took place online, via the Careers Fair Plus platform, attending employers and students didn’t need to travel.
Action & approach
Relevant staff from each participating institution met regularly to set up the Mega Fair, as well as attending Careers Fair Plus training sessions, so that they knew how to use the online platform.
Employer contacts were shared amongst the group, and the institution with the closest relationship with each employer was tasked with inviting them. This was to ensure that employers wouldn’t be invited by multiple institutions.
Each institution promoted the fair to their individual students, though similar branding was used by all.
Impact
The Mega Fair’s focus was on attracting large, graduate employers, which it did successfully. There were 77 employers in attendance, with some well-known names including: PwC, British Airways, Deloitte, Dyson and Sky.
Attending employers commented that the fair was very well organised, and that the group sessions held were effective as they could engage with lots of students at once, rather than individually, as per the one-to-one, bookable appointments.
Student-wise, the fair attracted 1316 unique users on the app, with a total 2700 CVs passed to employers.
Conclusions & advice
Due to the Mega Fair’s success, we plan to hold it again in term 1 of the next academic year.
Lessons learnt are as follows:
- A longer lead time is needed for planning and marketing. We started planning in late August, which proved a tight turnaround for a November event of this scale, so we’ll start much earlier this year;
- Clearer marketing messages are needed for students about accessing the app/online platform;
- SMEs should be encouraged to attend our on-campus fair as they were overlooked by students at the Mega Fair, due to all the big names in attendance;
- Attending employers should be encouraged to run group sessions for students as these worked well. They shouldn’t just be held at the start of the day, but repeated throughout the event. This will enable to students to attend more of them, thus engaging with more employers.
