UCLA Engineering Career Fairs

Context

The pandemic brought a new set of challenges to colleges and universities around the world. One of the many innovative universities that rose to the challenge was UCLA; our team worked with their Samueli School of Engineering throughout the Fall 2020 quarter to bring students opportunities for engagement and networking in a virtual environment.

"Although interactions among company representatives and students occurred virtually, Gatherly simulated traditional career fair experience by setting up company tables and icons in virtual breakout rooms. Students were able to 'walk up' to a company’s table and initiate conversations with recruiters." (Source)

Setup

Because UCLA had so many different organizations interested in hosting virtual events, we worked with several event organizers across multiple departments. It was exciting to see each organizer's unique approach to planning and designing events!

Each event had its own take on custom maps depending on the use case; since most of these events had attendances of several hundred students, they were frequently held across multiple floors to help structure the event.

The event organizers at UCLA did a great job of featuring their sponsors and presenters prominently on both their maps and brochures. Below are a few of the many stellar maps they designed:

All in all, UCLA used the following Gatherly features to make each career fair successful:

• Custom maps
• Floors
• Sponsor branding
• Broadcasting
• Screensharing

Results

At Engineering Welcome Day, incoming freshmen and transfer students were greeted by their faculty and welcomed to UCLA's engineering program. At the BMES Biotech Career Fair, students networked with companies like Moderna and Gilead. At the Computer Science Career Fair, employers like Facebook, Deloitte, and Citadel connected with hundreds of UCLA students.

Even though this past quarter brought unprecedented challenges to students, schools, and employers, UCLA event organizers were able to quickly adapt and facilitate valuable experiences and connections in a virtual environment. They've not only impressed their students and stakeholders, but they've even wowed us with some of their innovative event designs!

"When planning our event, we wanted to find a platform with an intuitive interface. Gatherly's interface was very easy to learn, both for us organizers and for our attendees, and we were able host a virtual event that emulated the flow of an in-person event. Navigating the platform was simple, and attendees were much more engaged than at events held on Zoom." - Peter Sutarjo, VP at the Engineering Society at UCLA

All in all, Gatherly was able to serve over 1,000 UCLA students through 5 events during the Fall 2020 semester.