Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of the HackerRank Virtual Career Fair, an online career fair designed to help student job seekers get hired in developer roles. It’s a remote, skills-centric student career fair designed to match students to employers based on their proven technical skills.

At HackerRank, our goal is to help match every developer to the right job—and to help companies accelerate their ability to innovate in the process. For any company, that starts with connecting to students with the technical skills they need to execute on their innovative vision.

Connecting early talent with job opportunities through the virtual career fair

Historically, 400,000+ student developers and 1,200+ schools have relied on in-person career fairs to find internships and full time jobs every year according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But given the impact of COVID-19, in-person career fairs around the country have been forced to cancel to enact social distancing. That’s why we’re excited to introduce the HackerRank Virtual Career Fair: an event to help companies reach exponentially more students from every university, college, vocational program, and bootcamp at once.

For both parties, traditional career fairs are artificially limiting: restrictions around budget, travel availability, and time mean that only a fraction of available job seekers and employers are able to successfully connect.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce the HackerRank Virtual Career Fair, a remote university recruiting event where students from across the United States can connect with potential employers.

While first impressions at a career fair are often based purely on resumes, the Virtual Career Fair leverages data from the HackerRank platform to create a skill-based experience.

Candidates can use the HackerRank platform to complete contests and certifications before the fair to earn vetted skills. During the event, candidates and employers interact through a series of live events, expos, and one-on-one recruiter sessions. Using candidates’ skill profiles, recruiters can view candidates’ vetted skills to better match them to open roles.

Participating in a HackerRank Virtual Career Fair

The inaugural HackerRank Virtual Career Fair will run from September 21st through September 22nd. The event will feature a panel of corporate sponsors, including Fortinet, PayPal, Duolingo, Twilio, and many more.Over the course of the 2-day event, companies will host live events including tech talks, informational sessions, Q&As, and more. Company pages share information on the company mission, roles they’re looking for, and more.

Based on the live events and company pages, students can select the companies they’re interested in applying to. Those companies, in turn, will receive skill profiles and resumes from the students that selected their brand.

Employers hiring developers

The Virtual Career Fair is open to HackerRank customers interested in hiring US-based student developers. Using details supplied by the exhibitor, HackerRank will build a customized company profile, that lists open roles, locations and more details on company culture to share with student attendees.

Students that express interest in the company will appear in the employer’s HackerRank account. There, companies will be able to review their vetted skills, resume, and contact information. Recruiters can advance qualified candidates directly to the next step in the evaluation process through the platform—no need to upload resumes or manually input candidate contact information.

When the fair is over, recruiters will be able to export the candidate list into a CSV, or directly to an applicant tracking system (ATS). This streamlined process enables recruiters to reach a broader pool of skilled students with less recruiting effort, and less budget.

Developers looking for internships and full-time roles

The Virtual Career Fair is free and open to all current students in the United States. Any currently enrolled or recently graduated student developer is encouraged to join. Early career developers from any major, or any school in the US are encouraged to join. That includes those that have participated in 2-year degree programs and coding bootcamps, as well as self-taught developers.

To participate, developers need to sign up in the HackerRank Community. Once set up, students can sharpen their skills with practice challenges and take assessments to earn skill certifications to help stand out to potential employers.

As students select the companies they’re interested in, we’ll notify the company’s recruiters. From there, recruiters will be able to review HackerRank skill profiles, and move candidates directly into the first round if their skills are a match.

Want to register for the inaugural HackerRank Virtual Career Fair this September? Students can pre-register for the September 2020 fair here. Employers can learn more about the fair and explore exhibitor options below:

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Prahasith Veluvolu is a product leader at HackerRank, where he focuses on connecting early career developers with employers based on skill. Formerly the CEO of Mimir (acquired by HackerRank), Prah is Thiel Fellow, a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and a Y Combinator alum.