If you want to get in front of a room of 100 underrepresented minorities who study computer science, are juniors who don't require visa sponsorship, and who are willing and able to relocate to your city for the summer, well—now you can.

Enter WayUp’s Virtual Events—the answer to the question of how to get in front of a diverse audience of highly engaged candidates without being limited by physical proximity. A Virtual Event is when a large group of targeted candidates joins a 60-90 minute meeting with one company to learn more about their business. You can think of it almost like a highly targeted info session in an intimate, virtual setting.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about WayUp’s Virtual Events—from building your audience to ensuring high attendance to measuring the ROI afterward. 

Just like with in-person events, virtual events ensure that:

• Candidates have a better understanding of your company and your open roles—making them more likely to apply.
• Candidates walk away more prepared for interviews with your company.
• Your team can begin the essential process of building relationships with potential candidates. 
• You can get great brand exposure toward a targeted and diverse audience.

However, Virtual Events (or “VE” for short) differ from in-person events in many ways, as well:

• They are even easier to pull off, because you can leverage the power of WayUp’s sourcing tool to ensure you’re attracting the right candidates. 
• WayUp takes care of all the marketing (including registration and reminder emails/text messages) so that all you need to do is show up and prepare top-notch content for the event.
• You don’t have to spend money and time flying from place to place, typically resulting in low ROI.
• You can screen out unqualified candidates, so you don’t show up to a room of all freshmen when you’re trying to promote a full-time role (we’ve all seen it happen!)

To get started planning your VE, let us know how many attendees you’re looking for and your audience’s target demographics (including gender, race/ethnicity, major, veteran status, and more). WayUp’s automated sourcing will then source candidates, screen them according to your unique criteria to make sure you’re only getting qualified candidates, and confirm their registration. Want to also promote the event across your network? Share the registration page with anyone, including professors or former interns to cast your net as wide as possible. Students don’t need to be existing WayUp users to register and attend. 

We’ll send registrants prep materials the day before your event and an SMS reminder on the day of! After all, registering a group of qualified, diverse, and engaged candidates is critical to hosting a successful event, and we’re thrilled that the average attendance rate for a VE is 75%.

As you prepare for the event and follow up after, you can review WayUp analytics to monitor the data that matters most to your team. In real-time, see the number of registrations, the % of qualified registrants, who is actually applying to your roles, and your audience’s demographics. These insights are crucial to measuring the success of your VE and ensures that you’re reaching the right candidates to achieve your D&I hiring goals.

To learn more about how WayUp partnered with Bloomberg to build Virtual Events that attracted 94% Black & Latinx Candidates, check out this case study.‍

‍If you have any more questions about Virtual Events—or WayUp in general—please fill out the form below or contact us at engage@wayup.com.