January 26, 2010
How to Succeed at Job Fairs
Standing out at a Career Faire can make a difference in your search. Career Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a SF Bay Area Career Fair in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and a major job search company has 82 job faires scheduled for 2010 across the United States.
How do you stand out at a Job Fair? The contention can be noteworthy, but you can help yourself stand out from the bunch with early planning. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward step-by-step process to get ready. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the organizations that are going and pick your targets. Use the internet to check out the companies that are there ahead of time. Go to their internet sites and see if they have their job openings listed. Pick a limited number to target, and get ready to spend up to an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than 7 in a day, and four to six is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring organization, you want to know: key product lines, recent news, and executive names. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You should end up 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 company is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the nomenclature match. If the hiring organization 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 ‘brief sales pitch’ for each likely company/job combination. Write down a 60 second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud describing why you are a good prospect for that job. 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 job type. The objective on your resume should exactly match the job you’re want. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the achievements 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 a no-brainer to see that you’re a fit based on your resume.
Fifth, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress well and be properly groomed. Don’t over do-it (this isn’t a date!) and don’t underdress (no jeans or t-shirts, no matter how much you paid for them). Avoid strong cologne or perfume.
Finally, rehearse your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each position – bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a understandably tagged folder. Keep them in a light briefcase or folio.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
