The Spring Graduate Fair at the University of London sponsored by WikiJob.co.uk 19 March 2014 Senate House, University of London www.springgradfair.co.uk Event Report Contents General Summary Page 2 Marketing Page 3-4 Visitor Information & Statistics Pages 5-8 Feedback Page 8-12 Events Calendar The London Graduate Fair from The Careers Group and TARGETjobs The London Graduate Fair from The Careers Group and TARGETjobs The Postgraduate Study Fairs from The Careers Group in association with FindAPhD & FindAMasters.com 18 June 2014 14 October 2014 29 October 2014 29 January 2015 For further information about exhibiting at any of our Fairs, please contact the Events Team on 020 7863 6050 or events@careers.lon.ac.uk
The Spring Graduate Fair at the University of London 19 March 2014, Senate House The Spring Graduate Fair at the University of London was held for the fifth year running following the success of previous Spring Fairs in 2012 and 2013, and was sponsored for the fourth consecutive year by WikiJob.co.uk. We enjoyed the interaction between visitors and other stands. It s also a good opportunity to talk to other institutions and agencies as well as gaining information from prospective students University of Brighton We liked the number of students prepared with CV's and also that some of the people we spoke too had already graduated and were looking for employment immediately FDM Group Key Statistics: 63 exhibitors took part 2,454 people pre-registered to attend 1,714 people attended on the day just 2 less than 2013 95% of exhibitors said the fair was very worthwhile attending 80% of exhibitors said the visitors were Excellent or Good Once again we managed to get a fantastic number of visitors to the Fair with just 2 less than in 2013. With a very similar number of exhibitors, this fair is ideal in the Spring term for recruiting students and graduates for the coming year s vacancies. The Fair featured the usual services we offer at our other graduate Fairs a free CV and Application Form feedback service, C2 Careers Coaching one to one 25 minutes appointments with a Careers Consultant to discuss CVs, Application Forms, Interviews, Career Change and Career Progression, as well as the Presentation Programme which included free talks on How to write a CV, How to complete an Application Form, Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions and Transferable Skills what are they and how to present them. These talks had an average attendance of 55 delegates. We are able to offer our visitors impartial and expert advice on how best to prepare for the Fair, how to approach exhibitors and how to network effectively. With our network of Careers Consultants placed in colleges every day, we are well aware of the issues and questions students and graduates are facing in this current economic climate and we are able to draw on this expert advice to help our visitors prepare. All pre-registered visitors are sent regular emails in the weeks leading up to the Fair with information on latest exhibitors to book and other news about the Fair. We also let all pre-registered visitors know when our Online Fair Guide goes live so they can research the companies they are interested in talking to before they attend the Fair. We also sent two pre-event solus emails and one post-event solus email as sponsorship opportunities for exhibitors, and Hydrogen Group sent two emails as part of their fair campaign this year. 2
Marketing How visitors found out about the Fair The information below shows the most successful media through which we advertised the Fair. The campaign is very varied with both print and online media. 250 200 150 100 50 0 Marketing Media Traffic to our own Fair website and traffic directed from The Careers Group website and other college careers services websites tops the list, with our JobAlert email service following closely behind. Prospects, TARGETjobs and Wikijobs.co.uk also attracted visitors to the fair website to pre-register. Website traffic Our Fair website www.springgradfair.co.uk had 16,863 visits during the 3 month campaign 1 Dec 2012 22 March 2014, a little up on last year s number of 16,084. Of this number 11,771 were unique visitors. Visitors looked at an average of 4 pages per visit and spent an average of 3 minutes on the site. The Home page received over 16,000 views and the Exhibitor List received almost 5,384 visits proving how important it is for exhibitors to book early as all confirmed exhibitors are added to the exhibitor list straight away. The table below shows the top 12 sources for traffic to our website. The highest number came from our own activity websites, previous event referrals, opt-ins and jobalert emails. 3
Visits to www.springgradfair.co.uk 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 We ran a more extensive social media campaign this year using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Facebook was particularly successful and included a paid-for campaign. A number of Facebook pages were used to promote the event, including Postgraduate Study & Training Careers in the City Careers in the Creative Industries Getting into International Development Careers in Marketing, Advertising and PR International Futures Starting Your Own Business The London Graduate Fair The Facebook campaign had a significant impact with a reach of over 32,000 and over 270 clicks through to the fair website. 4
Visitor Statistics Interest in visiting the Fair 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 The main reasons for visiting the Fair this year was to find a job or graduate scheme starting in 2014-2015, work placement/internships and careers advice & information. The high interest in employment shows that events such as The Spring Graduate Fair are hugely important for job seekers as they provide face to face interaction and information that would not be available online. They also give visitors the opportunity to get a sense of what the culture is like at the organisations that exhibitors represent. With no other national graduate recruitment Fair being held in the Spring term, this makes the Spring Fair the ideal event for recruiters with vacancies or placements to be filled during the spring and summer terms. 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Career Sectors visitors would like to work in The table above shows the careers sectors our visitors are interested in working in and as always Management, Advertising, marketing and sales are at the top of the list. 5
Degree Details Degree Result 19% 2% 11% 20% 48% 1st 2.1 2.2 3rd Non-UK The quality of our visitors has been improved year on year with 68% having achieved or expected to achieve a 1 st or a 2.1, compared with 51% last year. 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Degree subjects The chart above shows the degree subject areas studied by our visitors. Social Science & Humanities and Business & Management are once again typically the most popular degree subjects. The table also emphasises the diverse talent pool available to exhibitors attending our Fairs to fill their graduate and work placement vacancies. 6
The majority of our visitors - 55% - had graduated in 2013 or were due to graduate this year, making this fair ideal for filling current and upcoming vacancies. Graduation Year 5% 7% 4% 3% 2% 1% 34% 2014 2013 2015 10% No answer 2012 13% 21% 2008-2010 2011 2016-2018 2000-2007 9.0% 8.0% 7.0% 6.0% 5.0% 4.0% 3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0% University Details Top 15 univerities represented The chart above shows the top 15 universities our visitors attended. Predictably for an event held at Senate House, the top 4 out of the top 5 universities were all from central London and part of the University of London. Despite this, over 120 different institutions were represented by our visitors, and a further 254 visitors had studied overseas. This diverse calibre of visitors was achieved by our wide ranging and effective national 7
marketing campaign and proves once again the effectiveness of this Fair in putting students, graduates, employers and training providers together during the Spring term. Visitor Feedback 79% of visitors said they had visited the fair website to register and find out more information about the fair. Did you visit the fair website www.springgradfair.co.uk Yes No No answer 8% 13% 79% How useful did you find the website? 16% 8% 4% 36% Useful No answer Fairly useful 16% Very useful 20% No opinion Not useful Just over half of the visitors (52%) said the fair website was very or fairly useful. The website included the full list of exhibitors, an Online Fair Guide, Indices for quick searches, the Presentation Programme and lots of useful advice on how to prepare to visit a graduate recruitment Fair. We encourage visitors to visit the website before they attend the fair through a series of emails to the preregistered database and also through our JobAlert emails. The visitors who take the time to use the website and conduct their research before getting to the fair are always the ones who get the most out of attending. 8
What was the best thing about the Fair? Best thing about the fair? Networking directly with exhibitors 14% 9% 10% 5% 19% 24% 19% Variety of exhibitors CV Surgery Location Number of exhibitors Well laid out/planning Our visitors told us that the best thing about the Fair was being able to meet with a wide range of exhibitors and talk face to face. The CV Surgery always gets good feedback and all the appointments were fully booked. We let visitors pre-book the first hour of CV slots in advance which created a lot of demand for appointments later in the day which were booked on a first come, first served basis. We also had a total of 4 x C2 Careers Coaching appointments available which were all also fully booked. Visitors could talk to a Careers Consultant for 25 minutes in a 1-2-1 session about CVs, application forms, interviews, career change or career progression. How could we improve this Fair? How can we improve the fair? Have more exhibitors with graduate jobs More variety in exhibitors 8% 8% 7% 15% 8% 54% Information for graduates who don't have a 2.1 or above Have bigger presentation rooms Advice for mature students Even out the halls to have equal number of stands 9
We asked our visitors how we could improve the Fair and by far the most popular response was to have more exhibitors from a wider variety of graduate recruitment sectors and graduate opportunities. We strive to have as many graduate recruiters at the Fair as possible and we also try to provide a good mix of recruitment agencies and training providers & Higher Education institutions too to ensure that we offer a good range of advice, information and options for our visitors. Visitor Quotes: It was very organised with many stalls. The CV surgery was very beneficial for me. It also provided the opportunity for networking with employers and recruiters as well as other people who were in the same situation as me It was my first time visiting a job fair, it was very interesting that there are many organisations to talk to and find out about the jobs I am interested in I haven't visited other fairs but I found the layout, exhibitors and organisation excellent and received a lot of great advice. It was incredibly useful Exhibitor Feedback The following feedback is based on 20 replies (31% of our exhibitors). Was the Fair worthwhile attending? 5% 95% Yes No All but one of the exhibitors who replied said the fair was worthwhile attending with many seeing a good quantity and high quality of visitors. One exhibitor said they had not seen the calibre of visitor they were hoping for compared to when taking part in our other graduate fairs. 80% said they would attend the fair again. The table below shows how exhibitors rated the quality of visitors to the fair 80% rated them as Excellent or Good. A small percentage rated some visitors as poor and we received a comment from staff on one stand that a few visitors were unprepared, had done no research on the company and therefore were unimpressive when visiting the stand. We do our best to help visitors prepare for the fair with lots of advice on the fair website and tips on how to make the most out of a careers fair but visitors who register on the day or who have had no interaction with the fair website can miss out on this information. 10
How would you rate the quality of visitors? 5% 15% Good 20% 60% Excellent Poor No answer How did you find the following aspects of the Fair? Advance Booking Arrangements 29% 41% Excellent Very good 30% Good Sponsorship opportunities 14% 7% 15% 14% Excellent Very good Good 50% Satisfactory Poor 11
Assistance upon arrival 17% 5% 39% Excellent Very good 39% Good Satisfactory Assistance throughout the fair 11% 39% Excellent 50% Very good Good Exhibitor Quotes: We enjoyed the variety of graduate and candidate and we found that we managed to get 150 people sign up which is considerably more than usual. We also enjoyed interactions with other companies and universities - Step The venue, organisation and range of employers are excellent GRB Well organised from the beginning. One of the easier fairs to navigate Dropbox The variety of exhibitors and the marketing and promotion of the event - it had obviously been well advertised to students ACCA To find out more about our other graduate recruitment or postgraduate information events, please contact The Careers Group Events Team on events@careers.lon.ac.uk or call 020 7863 6050. 12