How to choose an app
for a recruitment fair

Choose a recruitment fair app that lets candidates find relevant employers, lets recruiters manage their availability and controls who can see each profile. If you offer appointments, test the complete booking journey and the report you will use to assess the event afterwards.

A recruitment fair brings together people with different roles and expectations. Start your evaluation with those roles, then assess the programme, access route and price.

List the employers, job types and candidate groups your fair serves. Decide whether the event is open to everyone, aimed at a specific field or designed for a particular recruitment need.

Choose profile questions that help the two sides decide whether to meet. An employer can describe the roles it is recruiting for, the location and the experience it needs. A candidate can describe the work they seek, relevant skills and their preferred location. Request only information the event has a reason to use.

If a supplier offers matching, ask which answers affect recommendations and whether participants can still search directly. A recommendation should lead to a useful conversation, and your demo should show how people understand it.

Create two candidate accounts and two employer accounts. Test what each can search, view, download and contact. Include someone who wants to explore opportunities without making a profile visible to other candidates.

Decide who should see a CV or contact details, and when. Ask what happens when a person changes their visibility or leaves the event. Give your data-protection lead the supplier’s documentation and the planned profile fields for review.

Tavata supports separate employer and job-seeker groups; job seekers’ profiles are shown to employers rather than other job seekers. Test the complete role setup, including CV and contact visibility, with the configuration proposed for your fair.

An employer’s stand is not a single person. Ask whether each recruiter can have their own availability and whether the event can distinguish several representatives from the same employer.

For an illustrative capacity plan, 20 employers with two available recruiters each and six meeting slots per recruiter offer at most 240 recruiter appointment slots. That assumes each slot hosts one candidate and all recruiters are available throughout. Breaks, occupied slots and other duties reduce the usable capacity.

Use your real staffing plan in the demo. Test overlapping requests, a recruiter becoming unavailable and a candidate moving an appointment. Confirm how the app assigns the place or video link and tells both sides about changes.

Decide how many appointments you want to book in advance and what remains available on the day. A fully booked recruiter cannot also promise to speak to every walk-in visitor at the same time.

Check whether employers can publish their available times before the fair and whether candidates can manage bookings on a phone. If you accept last-minute visitors, test how they join and find an available conversation.

Keep the practical instructions clear: where to go, who the meeting is with and what happens if someone is late. For the detailed event plan, use the guide to running a recruitment fair.

Ask someone unfamiliar with the app to find an employer and make a booking. Test the languages used by your candidates, including account messages and meeting reminders. A translated interface and translated employer content are separate requirements.

Check the experience with larger text, a screen reader and a slow connection. Plan a staffed help point or another way to arrange a conversation for people who cannot use the app.

For a hybrid fair, have one recruiter and one candidate join a video meeting on separate devices. Confirm the supported devices, joining steps and support route before offering remote appointments.

Useful operational measures include candidates who joined, employers with available appointment times, meeting requests and accepted bookings. A meeting should only be counted as held if you have a way to confirm that it happened.

If your goal is recruitment, ask employers later about interviews or other agreed next steps. The app may help report event activity, but a booking count does not establish that someone was interviewed or hired.

Ask what your organisation can export and what each employer can access. Agree the access period and retention arrangements for profiles and CVs before the event. If you want a network that continues between fairs, evaluate that as a separate use case.

Use a small test with two employers, several recruiters and candidates with different skills and visibility choices. Ask the supplier to complete the following tasks, then let your own organiser repeat the key setup steps.

Give the supplier the expected number of candidates and employer representatives, the format and the meeting features you need. Ask how participants are counted and whether administrators or exhibitors have separate allowances.

Tavata’s price uses registered attendees who receive access, with both sides counted at recruitment events. Matchmaking and booked 1:1 meetings are included in Tavata’s price. Include the registration system and the support needed for employers and candidates in the same budget.

See Tavata for recruitment events for the product and use the supplier scorecard to record your demo results.