Attending a career fair seems rather straight-forward. You treat it like a job interview, but with a couple of dozen employers instead of just one.
Naturally, you dress your best, take along several copies of your resume and you prepare to spend the next hour or two visiting booth after booth trying to talk company representatives into hiring you. Sounds great, right? It can be if you know how to make career and job fairs work for you.
Getting Inside the Head of the Recruiter
Companies that send representatives to attend job fairs do it for a variety of reasons: to generate name recognition for their company, to educate fair attendees about their firm, to collect resumes for potential future openings. And, yes, they even attend to quickly screen potential job candidates for current openings.
However, keep in mind that you are fighting for their attention with dozens of other candidates. That means you have very little time to make that all-important first impression. An impression that is even more important in a career fair setting because if an employer isn’t ready to hire you today, you need to stay fresh in their mind long after the doors of the event have closed.
Make sure you make the right first impression by being assertive, yet respectful. You want to have your 15 seconds in the spotlight, but not at the expense of other candidates or by bullying your way to the front of the line. And when it's your turn, make it count. Shake hands, state your name clearly and ask your best question.
Choose the Right Career Fair
There are a lot of different types of job fairs. So deciding which one(s) you will attend is an important factor in making sure you spend your time wisely.
First, there are the big generic job fairs that attract a lot of local employers along with a lot of local talent. They are not a bad time investment; however, because they encompass a wide-range of industries and careers, you are less likely to find employment geared specific to you.
On the other hand, there are career fairs that offer a more narrowly defined focus, such as the job fairs for older workers discussed in Carol Finch’s Suite 101 article, “AARP Career Fairs: How Can They Help Older Workers Find Jobs?” Or the diversity job fairs – for women, minorities, GLBT and candidates with disabilities – put on by Vault.com. There is one geared specifically toward the financial sector coming up on September 23 in New York City.
You might even decide to go virtual, a choice that is becoming more and more popular. For instance in the article, “Veteran-Friendly Job Resources to Ease Vets Back into Job Market” veterans and their families can gain access to vet-specific virtual job fairs; while professional organizations such as SAE International, for engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries, are offering free virtual job fairs of their own.
Whichever you choose – virtual or face-to-face – you’ll find a wide range of job fair choices just by using any job search engine to conduct a search using “job fairs” plus the name of your city and “virtual job fairs.”
Avail Yourself of Opportunities
More and more often career fairs, both virtual and face-to-face, are offering – even requiring – attendees to pre-register. The benefit to the host is in gaining an estimated headcount of attendees. The benefit to attendees is that pre-registering very often requires that you submit your resume. This provides employers with the opportunity to preview your background in advance and in some cases to even arrange pre-set interviews.
Keep in mind before you go you should have a list of questions you want answered. Not the generic what-jobs-are-open-and-how-much-do-they-pay kind of questions, but things that get more to the heart of why you might want to work for an organization. Company representatives want candidates who demonstrate knowledge of their organization and/or industry, have intelligent questions to ask and have thought about the way they might fit into their firm.
And don’t forget to collect business cards from everyone you meet. Note on the back any specific details pertinent to your conversation, including the date and where you met, and then follow up afterwards with a letter of thanks along with a piece of information the representative might find useful or interesting. It’s a great way to solidify your interest in their company.
Whether they are called job fairs or career expos, are virtual or face-to-face, specific or generic, if you do things right, you can learn how to make them work for you.
Deborah S. Hildebrand - Deborah S. Hildebrand is a freelance writer & HR consultant with 20+ years in human resources & a Bachelor's degree in Business.
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