Competing Successfully at a Career Faire
Standing out at a Job Fair can make a difference in your job hunting. Job Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a SF Bay Area Job Faire in January, 10 companies as showing up, and a major job search company has 82 career faires scheduled for this year across the US.
How do you stand out at a Career Faire? The competition can be substantial, but you can help yourself surpass from the herd with advance homework. At AA-Careers, we have a simplified six-step process to get ready. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, research the organizations that are going and pick your objectives. Use the internet to research the organizations that are there beforehand. Go to their web sites and see if they have their job openings listed. Pick a sensible number to target, and get ready to spend up to an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than seven in a day, and five or six is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring organization, you want to know: recent news, key product lines, and contacts you know. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You will end up with with a page or two of research for each company/job.
Second, if there are job openings on the web, read them to see what the hiring department is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the terminology match. If the hiring company calls customers "clients", your resume should do the same thing. The achievements should be written in the style of the hiring company.
Third, create a ‘thumbnail sales pitch’ for each likely organization/job combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud showing why you are a fantastic prospect for that position. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from the company at the job booth.
Fourth, modify your resume for each position. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position you’re aiming for. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the accomplishments and skills that most clearly match the job prerequisites. Especially at a Career Fair, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be very easy to see that you’re a match based on your resume.
Fifth, practice your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each opportunity - bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a distinctly marked folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.
Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress nicely and be well groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or scent sparingly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
