Events might not be the most talked source of hire, but they are without a doubt one of the most effective and should be considered an important part of your recruitment marketing mix. The reason is simple - the power of 1:1. Events are the only marketing channel that gives you the opportunity to engage with candidates face-to-face, in real life. It doesn’t matter how snazzy your career site is or how much personality shines through in your job descriptions, there’s no greater way to influence a candidate’s interest than through in-person interactions that provide a first hand look at what makes your company a great place to work.
 

Despite the benefits of events, employers often struggle to develop an effective strategy for sourcing and recruiting with events. Just like referrals, which employers frequently cite as their leading source of hire, the in-person connections established and nurtured through events often go untracked in the recruiting funnel. Without the right data it becomes even more difficult to arrive at the right strategy and prove its results.
 

How can you make the most of events for recruiting? Here are 6 mindsets that can help you find success.

An annual open house or campus recruiting visit barely scratches the surface of the recruiting opportunities made possible by events. Every event is a recruiting opportunity, after all. Here at Splash, we’ve sourced amazing hires for hard-to-fill positions from events we’ve hosted that had nothing to do with recruiting - or rather, they weren’t traditional “recruiting events”.
 

Some of the most effective event-driven recruiting strategies are built around providing the types of candidates you’re looking for with value thought leadership and relevant education.
 

Indeed Tech Talks, for example, is a monthly technical speaker series hosted at Indeed’s Austin office. The talks feature experts sharing their real-world experiences on the challenges of developing great products. The talks attract top talent from the Austin tech community - the exact people that Indeed would want to hire.
 

Attendees might not be open to a new opportunity right now, but that can change fast in today’s market. 

Employees are the best recruiting tool we have, yet recruiting teams often fail to notify or include them in recruiting events. Candidates at an event want to learn about what makes your company special and get a feel for the people they’d be working. Your employees are the most authentic and compelling voice that can deliver this information.
 

If employees aren’t active participants you need to rethink your strategy. Not only should they be attending, they should have a clear understanding of why their participation is so valuable. Make sure to notify them about all recruiting related events, along with sharing details on how to register, attend and participate. 

An RSVP from a prospective candidate should sound your “high-intent” alarm, especially if that candidate hasn’t previously responded to traditional outreach from your team. It’s the equivalent of a candidate raising their hand and asking you to tell them more.
 

While they’ll get to meet the real you at the event, the information you capture during the RSVP process provides a valuable opportunity to inform that meeting and subsequent follow ups.
 

Think beyond the standard required fields like email and consider what other intelligence you could capture by customizing the traditional RSVP form with questions pertaining to personal and career interests, areas of expertise or cultural fit. 

The most value aspect of events is the multiplier or networking effect. To capitalize on the opportunity, be sure to give attendees an easy way to add or bring guests. Guests aren’t just potential candidates, they’re valuable sources for referrals. Guests also increase the likelihood that registrants will attend the event. 

Perception is reality. If you’re still using an old fashioned clipboard and printed spreadsheet to check in your attendees, you’re sending a message that your employer brand is “behind the times”.Worst of all, you’re losing important data. Running your check-in with a pen and paper is costly for a variety of reasons:

• Guests stuck waiting at the door have less time to engage with your employer brand.
• Manually entered data is bound to be incomplete or have errors.

• Real-time intelligence about who is at your event is not available.

• Data is captured inconsistently across events.

The good news is there are plenty of digital check-in tools out there that are suitable no matter what your budget is. However, the easiest and most reliable way to attribute candidates and hires sourced or influenced by an event is with an automated integration between your event marketing technology and ATS.
 

Integrating events directly with your ATS enables a better RSVP experience and gives you easy access to data (no handwriting to decipher and no data scientist required) that accurately shows who attended and even who they interacted with.

The data RSVP and attendance data mentioned above is also critical for post-event follow ups. The biggest mistake we see companies make is undervaluing no shows. Just because someone couldn’t make it doesn’t mean they’re not interested or worth following up with. The fact that they didn’t come actually provides you with a perfect excuse to reach out.

So whether you’re sending a ‘thank you’ email to attendees or sharing an event recap with no shows, don’t forget to send a timely, relevant follow up. It’s the best way to keep the conversation going and provide further opportunities to engage. You might even consider inviting your event registrants to sign up for notifications about other relevant events and company happenings.