Employer Branding at Career Fairs: How a Game Turns a Stand Into a Conversation
Recruiting has become a marketing discipline. Even after a cooler year on the labour market, German companies still had an average of around 370,000 vacancies for skilled workers in 2025 that could not be filled with suitably qualified candidates, a third of all open positions for qualified staff (IW / KOFA, 2025). At a career fair, every company in the hall is after the same people, and most stands look alike: a roll-up, a table, a bowl of sweets.
A game gives candidates a reason to stop that is not a job ad.
The hardest part is the first sentence
Students and young professionals walk past stand after stand. Many would like to talk but do not know how to start, and few want to be approached with an elevator pitch. A game on the stand screen solves that. People play, a few others watch, the leaderboard fills up. For the recruiting team, someone who just played is an easy first conversation: you already have something to talk about.
The game can show what working with you feels like
Because branding covers the whole game, it can carry more than a logo. The sprites, the world and the prize logic can reflect your products, your industry or your workplace. An engineering company can let people build, a logistics company can let them sort and deliver, a bank can let them collect. The game becomes a small first impression of the company, not just a giveaway.
Contacts before the conversation
The flow is the same as everywhere: scan the QR code, enter the data you defined, confirm the opt-ins, then play. For a career fair the lead fields might include field of study, graduation year or area of interest. The talent team leaves with a list of opt-in contacts, sorted by what matters for recruiting, instead of a stack of CVs and business cards.
Plays and new contacts appear in the dashboard in real time and can be exported as a CSV.
One build for the whole recruiting season
Career fairs come in waves, in spring and autumn, at universities and industry events. The game is licensed monthly. During the license term the build belongs to you and runs as often as you like across the channels your mode covers: the next fair, the open day, the careers page. Between dates you can swap the prize pool or adapt the game to the season.
Bottom line
At a career fair, the stand that people want to visit wins the conversations. A branded game makes the first step easy, shows a bit of what the company is like and captures contacts the recruiting team can follow up.
Interactive advertising made easy. Planning your next career fair? Let's see what your stand could look like as a game, at playvertise.eu.
Sources
- IW – Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft / KOFA – Kompetenzzentrum Fachkräftesicherung. (2025). KOFA Kompakt: Jahresrückblick 2025 [Annual review 2025]. kofa.de
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