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Robert Smith, managing director at Hays Property & Surveying, offers the following advice for employers:

Do your research

Are you planning to recruit graduates into specific roles or is it more of a brand building exercise? You need to be clear about what you are hoping to achieve so that you can pick the correct fair for your company. Contact the event organisers well in advance to find out the demographic of last year’s attendees – which universities were the students from? What courses were they attending? And how many people attended? You will then be able to work out which one best suits your target audience.

Promote your attendance

So, you have decided which graduate fair to attend – now you need to work out what stand location is best for you and how you are going to attract the job seekers to your stand. You may want to take a stand near to your competitors so that you can also attract graduates who visit them and remember to book early so that you don’t get stuck at the back of the exhibition hall.

Pre-promotion of your attendance is also important; the event organisers should be able to help with this. Have you submitted a profile with your contact details and stand number for the exhibition guide? Have you let your local newspapers and careers centres know that you will be attending?

Design your stand

You need to capture the interest of job seekers quickly and they need to be able to clearly identify who you are and what you can offer them. Spelling out what you do in simple terms will help you to attract quality candidates.

Plus, students are easily attracted by freebies – not only will promotions such as prize draws and free pens attract the students to your stand, but they can be accompanied by literature on your company – ideal for them to look at later. But, do remember that they will be receiving a mound of information so try not to overload them with heavy brochures.

On the day

Make sure you have got the right people to man the stand. They must be passionate about what your company has to offer and be well briefed on the objectives; provide your team with a briefing document that they can refer to throughout the day. Practise role playing prior to the exhibition - rehearse possible questions and answers before the day itself. Whilst it is important not to come across as just another salesman, you don’t want to stumble over answers and need to impress your prospective employees. Remember that it is important to appear approachable and a smile goes a long way.

Finally, don’t forget to follow up any new leads. Good candidates are hard to find and you don’t want to miss out on the pick of the best.