Most Recruiting Events tend to focus on strong employer branding and big volumes of candidates in the pipeline. Both of these indicators are significant to keep an eye on, but you need sometimes to look farther down the funnel and concentrate on conversion because sometimes they’re not the true barrier for the talent team.

It is impossible to mimic the interpersonal connections that take place at Recruiting Events via phone or email. While video calls are getting there, they still can’t quite match the sense of freedom that a candidate experiences when deciding when to approach someone and when to end a conversation.

The distinctions between face-to-face and computer communication have been extensively studied. There are many distinct layers to face-to-face encounters that you won’t discover in a phone call or an email, from the significance of non-verbal clues to our innate desire to imitate one another. Events are therefore a potent tool for converting strategic leads who, in your opinion, require more than a casual automated nurture campaign to persuade them to apply or attend an interview.

4 Ideas for Recruiting Events to Convert High-Value Applicants

1) Breakfast meeting

If you have a lot of leads for a difficult-to-fill position but none of them are willing to commit to the application process, breakfast meetings are quite helpful. Consider Recruiting Events for high-value individual contributors who fit into positions requiring specialized technical skill sets, such as internal consultants, analysts, senior commercial roles, or mid-management positions.

These people would regard a 45-minute breakfast stop close to their current place of employment to be less of a commitment than, say, attending a lunch meeting. Make it clear that although you are setting up the meeting because you are interested in the applicant, it is merely for information and not to interview by Recruiting Events. You should send the hiring manager for the position or at the very least a peer who will work with the potential candidate in their new position, to this meeting. The objective is to describe how the position seems from the viewpoint of another worker and to provide frank responses to inquiries concerning difficulties and potential for advancement. Make sure to inform the manager of this because you want them to interact with you rather than go back to the “interview” conversion cycle.

2) Meetup with a difference

Because they are frequently unstructured and open-ended, meetups can be very hit or Miss. The majority of the time, they are advertised as chances to network or gain knowledge of the sector. A fireside chat or a brief Q&A session with an industry leader will be far more appealing to your prospects. You may, however, make them a little different by inviting only the candidates in which you are interested.

Include hiring managers and potential peers on the guest list, and be sure to inform them of who will be there and why they are the target candidates. Breaks and other times during the event will provide your recruiters the chance to conduct one-on-one introductions everywhere.