Nearly 35,000 people visited the recent GradU8 virtual careers fair, staged by TotalJobs’ Graduate Zone, and registrations were 41% up on 2009.

Mike Fetters, sales director, graduate and commercial partnerships, told Recruiter that the event, which ran for a week in November, showed candidates and employers are getting used to the concept of meeting in the virtual space. Major brands such as Accenture, Asda, Barclays Capital, Boots, Cable & Wireless and IBM took part.

“Confidence in interacting with candidates and employers through social media is still seen negatively. GradU8 bridges this gap between live engagement and employers presenting their offering using rich media and live chat tools without invading upon the graduates’ social space,” said Fetters, adding that the live

seminars and chatrooms proved the most popular features of the event. “With some very engaging seminar topics, we received record traffic and tackled some of the deepest issues in GradU8, such as how to stand out from the crowd and how to create your online brand.”

Other new features this year included company Twitter feeds, a live screen detailing which clients were live at any given time and a career doctor space for those with general questions. In terms of sectors and industries, Fetters reports that the most popular areas were finance and professional services, IT and general training schemes and adds that there was still evidence that some graduates are coming out of university without knowing what type of career they want. “We also saw quite a few graduates from last year online who have struggled to find a graduate position which is a little worrying,” he said.

TotalJobs plans to run two virtual career fair events next year with the first starting on 22 March and running for a week.

www.gradu8.com