Standing out at Career Fairs
January 26th, 2010
Standing out at a Job Fair can make a difference in your career search. Job Faires 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 fairs scheduled for this year across the United States.
How do you stand out at a Job Fair? The contention can be significant, but you can help yourself leap out from the gang with advance planning. At AA-Careers, we have a simple six-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 World Wide Web 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 tenable number to go after, and get ready to spend up to an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than 8 in a day, and three to five is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring company, you want to know: executive names, recent news, and key product lines. 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 postings on the web, read them to see what the hiring manager is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the nomenclature match. If the hiring company calls customers "clients", your resume should do the same thing. The accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring organization.
Third, create a ‘thumbnail sales pitch’ for each potential organization/position combination. Write down a 60 second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud depicting why you are a great prospect for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from the company at the job stall.
Fourth, modify your resume for each job type. The objective on your resume should exactly match the job you’re aiming for. 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 requirements. Especially at a Job Fair, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be quick to see that you’re a fit based on your resume.
Fifth, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress nicely 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, practice 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 clearly tagged folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
