KIT Career Fair@home on July 15, 2020 - virtually to your dream job!

Corona pandemic, cancellation of all major events, the KIT Career Fair has to be cancelled in May 2020 - the events at the beginning of the year also posed unexpected challenges to the KIT Career Service. We asked ourselves: Is it possible to quickly find an adequate replacement for a three-day job fair with about 20,000 visitors and 250 exhibitors from all over Germany and the world in times of contact closure, travel restrictions, and social distancing?

To make a long story short: You can!

The idea was quickly born - we virtually recreate the trade fair with its essential points. Trade fair stands with digital job walls and chats instead of discussions, online auditors with expert lectures and short presentations, archived even after the trade fair. And an information counter with consulting services offered by the KIT-Career-Service - simply by video call instead of direct exchange. We were able to inspire about 100 exhibitors of the originally planned KIT Career Fair 2020 to go this way with us. The common goal: to support KIT students and doctoral candidates on their way into professional life in this confusing situation.

On July 15, 2020, we welcomed more than 2,000 registered participants at the first purely virtual KIT Career Fair@home. During the online connection from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. we registered more than 4,700 logins, the virtual exhibition stands received an average of 320 "visits" and the technical presentations were listened to by up to 398 participants*, the short presentations by up to 232 participants*.
 

Among KIT students and doctoral candidates, the response to the substitute event for the physical trade show was predominantly positive:

„leichte Kommunikation mit den Vertretern der einzelnen Unternehmen. Interessante Fachvorträge und übersichtliche Darstellung des Karrieremessen-Konzepts.“

„Größten Respekt und viel Lob dafür in so kurzer Zeit ein derart gutes Event zu organisieren. Vielen Dank!“

„Sehr gute Umsetzung und viele Kontakte mit Unternehmen geknüpft!“

We from the KIT-Career-Service team are very pleased that we were able to fulfill our role as mediator from study to job even in these difficult times. We would like to thank all colleagues at KIT and external partners who have joined forces with us to set up this pilot project under great time pressure. We would also like to thank all visitors and exhibitors for having taken part in this experiment and for trying out a digital version of the KIT Career Fair with us.

And don't forget: The trade show platform will remain accessible for four weeks after the event - for making contact via mail form at the booth, listening to the lectures and short presentations, and reading up on the archived chats. We are also happy to receive feedback - via the form in the trade fair environment (Information & Auditoriums) or by e-mail to karrieremesse∂kit.edu.