In our final blog of our three-part series on Job Fair Hiring Success, we look at another key area to consider when exhibiting at a recruitment event and that is planning.

Like most things in life, we only get out what we put in and the same applies to exhibiting at a job fair.

Branding, staffing and timekeeping are three areas we believe most employers can improve on when it comes to attending an exhibition and should form the basis of your pre-event preparation.

When it comes to branding and promoting your key message at the event, we’re a big fan of the Ronseal slogan “it does exactly what is says on the tin”.

If you’re recruiting for nurses or doctors or both, make sure it’s immediately obvious to anyone looking at your exhibition stand that they can tell what you’re recruiting for at the event.

We recommend that you have your marketing or design agency create signage specific to your recruitment needs and have it visible on your stand.

If you’re exhibiting at an event overseas in another country such as Ireland, Australia or the UAE, don’t assume that the potential candidates will know exactly where you are located or how to get there.

Again, we recommend that you have your marketing or design agency create signage that highlights where you are from and include any specific landmarks.

We often find that highlighting the distance from your nearest international airport is worth including or that you are located 50 minutes from a major city such as London.

When it comes to staffing your exhibition stand, how many is enough?

At our job fairs we provide lunch for all our exhibitors and we regularly receive requests for 12 lunches from customers on a 3m x 3m stand.

Not only does this drive up the cost of exhibiting if there is travel involved, it can be very intimidating for a candidate thinking of approaching the stand.

The optimum is 2-3 staff members per stand and ideally someone from HR/Recruitment with two from the clinical side that can conduct interviews on the day.

Finally, nothing looks worse for your employer brand than an empty exhibition stand.

Arriving late for the job fair or leaving early (maybe to catch a flight) means that your stand is empty.

For candidates attending the job fair it looks like you don’t care or worse still, that you’re happy to waste money by signing up and then not turning up.

Understandably flight times and train timetables don’t always work in your favour and leaving an hour earlier can make the difference in getting home at a reasonable hour, but consider splitting your team to cover the setup and break down.