Virtual Career Fair Checklist
Maximize Your Virtual Career Fair Experience
Complete the steps below to maximize your career fair experience.
- Set your schedule
Now that you have registered for your selected career fair(s), the Schedule Owner will be able to create a schedule for representatives attending the fair. Each employer registration allows for 100 teammates maximum to be delegated to Group and/or 1:1 Sessions.
- For a walkthrough of this process, refer to Creating a Schedule for Virtual Fairs or check out a video on how to set your schedule.
- Teammates claim their schedules
Once the schedule has been created, your teammates will be able to claim their schedules by clicking the link in the email sent, or they can login to Handshake, navigate to the fair, then click on the Schedules tab to claim their schedule.
- Refer to Claiming & Participating in a Schedule for a breakdown of the full process or check out a video walkthrough of claiming a schedule.
- Manage schedule changes
Managing Schedules for Virtual Fairs contains all instructions on editing existing schedules, broken down by workflow (cancelling a session, transferring a 1:1 session schedule to a teammate, etc.).
preparing for the day-of
Check out this collection of best practices:
Ideally at least 2-3 weeks before the fair, you'll want to make sure all of the staff from your company participating in virtual fair sessions have active Handshake accounts, are connected to the correct company, and have claimed assigned schedules.
Preparing for day-of, make sure you and your team meet the right requirements to use audio and video smoothly.
Please see Hosting Virtual Fair Sessions for steps on how to launch your session
During your group sessions, keep track of participants that you want to follow-up with later. While preparing for the fair, it's a good idea to get familiar with ways you can keep track of participants you want to further engage with.
Next steps
The sooner your teammates can claim their schedules, the better, as this allows students to see more options for signup.
- Encourage session signups*
Employers will not be able to invite students directly to their schedules, students will be responsible for signing up for all sessions. However, employers can reach out to students prior to the fair by searching for qualified students and sending them direct messages through Handshake.
- Please keep in mind, Handshake Core Employers can contact up to 100 students per recruiting season.
- Using Search Students Feature
- How to Send a Student a Message
- Editing 1:1 session qualifications
If you have set 1:1 qualifications and are seeing a low number of signups from students, you can remove or edit qualifications to allow more students to participate.
- Note: Early in the school year, new/transfer students may not have data for GPA, have a Major selected, or a grad date entered. By selecting these preferences, students that are missing that data will not be able to sign up for your sessions.
- How to edit 1:1 Session Qualifications
- Host session day-of the fair
You will be able to join a session up to an hour early to test connectivity and performance. Review Hosting Virtual Fair Sessions for a full walk-through of the fair experience and check out our video walkthrough of hosting sessions here.
- Follow-up with students after the fair
After your sessions are over, follow-up with participants! You can send messages in Handshake, download resumes, and Host Virtual Interviews.
- For more information, see Following Up After a Virtual Fair.
how to troubleshoot
Please use this Troubleshooting Guide for detailed requirements and how to resolve issues.
What Can Be Changed During the Day of the Fair
Please be extra thorough and careful to setup your schedule, sessions, and team as you can't make many changes during the day of!
You CAN mark yourself as busy on sessions or cancel sessions during the fair. If a session is cancelled by an employer or student the other party will receive an email notification.
You CAN manage and edit your group sessions during the fair and coming soon you'll be able to manage team and edit preferences on 1:1 sessions during the fair.
How to Get Help
To report a technical issue from or during a session, click on the 3 dots from the session screen and select Report a Problem. The Handshake Support team will suggest some troubleshooting tips and you can reply back if further assistance is needed.
additional resources
Questions?
Contact Rachael Conrad at rachael.conrad@mail.wvu.edu.