The Ivy+ group of universities incorporates the most prestigious universities in the United States with their student body being some of the most sought-after hires. The group is composed of Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, and Yale University.

Going virtual 

Every year, the Ivy+ group hosts the Just-in-Time Career Fair to help students from their respective universities meet top employers from various industries for internship and job opportunities. This year, the event was to move online due to the pandemic. 

Why Talentspace

Talentspace had the great privilege to already work very closely with two members of the Ivy+ group, Brown University, and Stanford University, on their career events. It was through the very positive experience of these events that Talentspace emerged as the best platform to host the Ivy+ Just-in-Time Career Fair.

Onboarding and setup of the event 

This close partnership followed into the Ivy+ event. There were the obvious logistical challenges of coordinating an event containing 12 separate student bodies and 12 separate organizers all wanting to achieve the same goal: Provide undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, and recent alumni of the participating schools a chance to find summer internships and full-time employment opportunities. To ensure all organizers were on the same page, Talentspace hosted a number of targeted onboarding trainings designed to ensure the same level of platform awareness across the board. 

The next logistical task was training the 78 attending employers on the platform. The goal was to give recruiters ample time to maximize their employer branding, and visibility on the platform, and to show them how to filter through the extensive talent database for this event effectively.

Alongside this, Talentspace worked with the Ivy+ organizers on selecting the best program formats for this event and how they could be structured to maximize employer participant interactions. The organizer team settled upon a combination of pre-scheduled speeches and 1-1 chats along with the more spontaneous live booth format, allowing students to drop in and out as they please, which ran for the duration of the event.

The active organization from the Ivy+ team was really the driving force behind this successful event.

The Outcome

The Ivy+ Just-In-Time Career Fair was a giant success. The 4-hour event ended up connecting 78 employers with 1405 students through 40 speeches, 78 live booths, and 730 1-1 chats.

On average, each student was able to connect in at least 3 instances with recruiters via the various program formats. 

One of the employers, Jane Street, had a live booth with a record-breaking participant count of 201! A recruiter from Jane Street commented:

“This was my favorite platform to date, and I've used hundreds!”

The Ivy+ organizer team also provided very positive feedback, Emily Nolan, Associate Director of Employer Relations at Brown University commented:

“Talentspace is the most comprehensive platform for events, engagement and recruiting that we've used.  Every aspect is simple to manage and the platform allows for configurations from 1:1s to full-blown Webinar-style events. And, it offers real-time interaction- no idle wasted time with students queuing up.  It allows employers and students to engage both before and after an event as well as have meaningful engagement appointments during the event, too.  It's the best platform we've used so far.”