Unilever Turkey Redefines Recruitment With Interactive Virtual Career Fair

About the Host

Touching lives of consumers in Turkey since over a 100 years, a Unilever product is found in 9 out of 10 homes in the country. With 8 factories, and over 5000 employees, the company exports to 34 countries to play a key role in supporting Turkey’s economy. A powerhouse with well known brands leading market share in food, beverage, home, personal care and beauty categories, Unilever is one of Turkey’s hottest companies to work for as per Bloomberg Businessweek Turkey and Realtor Consulting 2018.

Hosting Challenges

• Finding the targeted talent segment comprising of recent graduates from across the country for the company’s various departments.
• The constraints of physical career fair hosting including high investment, staffing expenses, logistics, and time-intensive event planning.
• Inability to effectively promote company culture at the physical career fair (a key USP that makes Unilever Turkey a top employer in the country).
• Paper-based resumes required cumbersome data entry by the HR team; no quick shortlisting tools meant on-the-spot candidate screenings was a valuable missed opportunity.
• Department representatives and recruiters could not connect and communicate with career fair attendees without feeling constantly rushed and overwhelmed.
• Disappointing career fair experience for the attendees that delivered low engagement and audience retention rates (and consequently poor ROI).

The vFairs Strategy

Hosting their second virtual career fair within a span of two years, the vFairs team and Unilever Turkey have a track record of successful collaboration. Focusing on making recruitment innovative and affordable, the outcome of past virtual events has been the impressive engagement of fresh graduates across Turkey.

Providing customized functionalities to make hiring a breeze for our client, The Unilever Connect: Interactive Career Fair used the following features to help attract talent leads for all departments at a fraction of the usual cost:

1. Simplified Talent Lead Capturing

The virtual career fair’s registration form was customized to capture the information that mattered most to the employer. By using fields including education level, university, city, and department of interest, the prospect pool could be easily filtered to separate various qualifications, geographic segments, and even career ambitions.

By allowing attendees to upload their resumes at the time of registration, Unilever Turkey was able to secure a digital resume database that required no physical paper collection, sorting, or data entry hassles.

2. Customized Booths for All Departments

With a large number of vacancies to fill, the vFairs virtual event hosting platform delivered a dedicated exhibitor hall called “Fairground” with branded booths for each one of the company’s departments.

From Research and Development to the Human Resources department, the booths were strategically set up to streamline employer branding and communications. Offering video content, detailed job descriptions, links to social pages, and more – promoting Unilever’s unique culture was smooth sailing for the host.

3. Real-Time Chat Options

Delivering an interactive and engaging event is strongly tied to providing the attendees an opportunity to chat with company representatives. This is why each booth had its own distinct chat channel in the networking lounge to accommodate a forum-like discussion environment.

Recruiters and booth representatives also had textual, video, and audio-based chat tools to connect with talent, explore their interests, and conduct instant shortlisting to proceed with the hiring process without unnecessary delays.

4. Search Resume Filters

The virtual career fair interface was designed with a built-in search resume filter to accommodate a reliable and instant means of finding talent based on desired employer criteria. Ensuring that no qualified prospects fell through the cracks, this feature helped zoom in on top candidates to expedite screening and interviewing for the interested departments.

5. Inclusivity and Accessibility for All

The virtual career fair was designed to cater to a wide audience on a national scale, and overcome the obstacles for differently-abled candidates. Equipped with special features complying with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), attendees could change font sizes, color contrast, and access page narrations for their added convenience.

Providing a winning strategy that appealed to all fresh graduates and job seekers without exception, helped the event attract more traffic than a traditional physical career fair environment.

The Results Recap

vFairs provided the host with a comprehensive virtual career fair solution that attracted attendees from over the country. Spearheading an exceptional visitor experience, highlights included live webinars, and exclusive chat sessions with Unilever Human Resources, Finance, Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, and R&D departments. Using a methodical recruitment strategy, the event ROI proved that the sky’s the limit for this booming employer brand.

• Registered Users: 900+
• Logged-In Users: 350+
• Private Chat Messages: 1750+
• Public Chat Messages: 1700+