Competing Successfully at Job Fairs
Standing out at a Job Fair can make a difference in your job hunt. Career Faires are starting to pick up, and a major job search company 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 Dice has 82 career faires scheduled for 2010 across the States.
How do you rise above the crowd at a Job Faire? The competition can be substantial, but you can help yourself stick out from the gang with early preparation. At AA-Careers, we have a simple 6-step process to prepare. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, research the companies that are going and pick your objectives. Use the World Wide Web to research the organizations that are there before you even decide to go. Go to their sites and see if they have their 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 eight in a day, and three or four is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring company, you want to know: recent news, key product lines, and exectuve names. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You’ll 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 language 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 company.
Third, create a ‘thumbnail sales pitch’ for each likely organization/job combination. Write down a ninety second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud depicting why you are a great candidate for that position. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from the company at the job kiosk.
Fourth, modify your resume for each job type. The objective on your resume should exactly match the job you’re targeting. 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 description. Especially at a Career Faire, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be obvious to see that you’re a match based on your resume.
Fifth, 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 marked folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.
Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress well and be well groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or perfume sparingly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
