Beyond the Career Fair: How Recruiting Teams Can Reach More Schools Without Leaving Their Desk

Why traditional campus recruiting is becoming harder to sustain

Career fairs were designed for a recruiting era with more time, more budget, and more certainty about where to find talent. Most early talent teams no longer operate that way.

For decades, recruiters built relationships by returning to the same schools each year. Information sessions, résumé drops, and career fairs all helped employers become visible before application season. But that level of campus coverage is harder to justify when teams are lean and every trip must prove its value.

NACE’s 2025 Recruiting Benchmarks Report shows why campus recruiting still matters. More than 90% of employers still use direct on-campus recruiting for entry-level talent, and nearly as many view career services as important to recruiting success.

The challenge is reaching enough students. Employers still need campus relationships, but the traditional model is becoming harder to sustain at the exact moment they need broader reach. Campus visits should be one part of the strategy, not the constraint that determines which students encounter your brand.

Recruiters are visiting fewer campuses

Early talent teams need to reach more students while still identifying candidates hiring managers trust. That means reaching students beyond the familiar campus circuit and helping them understand the work before they apply.

Yet Veris Insights found that 53% of university recruiting teams that made cost adjustments in 2025 reduced the number of schools they recruited from. That may reduce near-term costs, but it also reinforces a familiar pattern: employers keep investing where they already have brand awareness, while lesser-known campuses remain harder to reach.

The risk of narrowing your campus recruiting strategy

When school lists shrink and nothing replaces that lost reach, the organization’s view of talent narrows too. Instead of adding more events to an already crowded calendar, teams need ways to help students explore real work at schools recruiters cannot visit.

More applicants have made candidate intent harder to read

Digital recruiting helped employers reach more students, but it also made it harder to tell who is seriously interested.

Veris Insights reported that 86% of employers described high application volume as either very challenging or somewhat challenging in 2025. High volume does more than slow recruiters down. It weakens the signals recruiters used to rely on.

Why resumes are becoming weaker signals

AI makes those signals even harder to interpret. Students can quickly optimize a résumé or tailor a cover letter, so those materials no longer prove much effort on their own. Students can also apply to more roles with less friction, leaving recruiters to sort through a larger pool of candidates who may look interested on paper.

What candidate behavior reveals before an application

That makes what students do before they apply more valuable. Recruiters need to know whether a candidate took time to understand the role, engage with the work, and build context before entering the hiring process. Those actions reveal motivation more clearly than a polished résumé.

The next era of campus recruiting is always-on

Career fairs create a burst of visibility, but students need ways to engage before and after recruiters come to campus.

Why students need more than a career fair

Students rarely move from awareness to application in one interaction. They need time to understand the role, test their own interest, and build confidence. That matters even more for students without family networks, prior internship experience, or early exposure to corporate career paths.

How virtual experiences improve recruiting outcomes

Virtual experiences can fill that gap. Used well, they extend reach and give students a practical way to learn what a role involves. They also give employers better insight into who is serious enough to engage with the work.

Instead of asking students to consume passive content, virtual experiences ask them to complete realistic tasks, learn role-specific language, and make a more informed decision about whether the opportunity fits their interests. That creates value on both sides: students apply with more context, and employers see signs of motivation before the first interview.

This approach extends campus relationships rather than replacing them. A recruiter may only visit a school once or twice a year, but students can engage with real work whenever they are ready to explore.

Using virtual job simulations to expand campus recruiting reach

Forage’s virtual job simulations are one example of this shift. These open-access, role-specific simulations help employers prepare and identify candidates before they apply. The platform reaches more than 10 million global users and gives employers access to a network of more than 2,300 colleges and universities. According to Forage platform data, candidates who complete simulations are 3 times more likely to be hired than peers.

Scale matters, but only when it produces better insight. Every touchpoint should help students understand the work and give recruiters a clearer read on intent.