Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals

This fall, the majority of employers will be hosting their own virtual recruiting events, such as Zoom sessions, virtual tours, and virtual career fairs, according to preliminary results of NACE’s August 2021 quick poll on fall 2021 recruiting.

This is a sharp increase from those that held their own virtual events prior to the pandemic.

This news comes as a significant majority of career services respondents to report that students will be returning to campus in the fall, and that they plan to invite employers to campus to attend recruiting events.

One factor playing into this shift for employers is the uncertainty about travel restrictions for recruiting activities this fall. At this point in the survey, nearly half of responding employers indicate that they have no such travel restrictions, an equal percentage say their organization’s rules for travel this fall are yet to be determined; the remaining employer respondents have travel restrictions already in place.

Colleges, however, seem to be planning to accommodate differing needs among employers as most expect to hold both in-person and virtual career fairs this fall; they plan to do so at separate times.

NACE is polling employers and career services professionals on their plans for fall 2021 in light of the pandemic and greater opportunity to return to in-person interactions. The polls address plans for serving, engaging with, and recruiting college students for jobs and internships, but also capture what happened with employer internship programs held in summer 2021. The polls run July 27 through August 20, 2021, and results are offered in real time.