Competing Successfully at Career Fairs
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 Bay Area Job Fair in January, 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 compete at a Job Fair? The competition can be sizeable, but you can help yourself surpass from the herd with early planning. At AA-Careers, we have a simple step-by-step process to get ready. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the organizations that are going and pick your objectives. Use the internet to check out the organizations that are there beforehand. Go to their sites and see if they have their job openings posted. Pick a sound number to target, 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 company, you want to know: key product lines, recent news, and executive 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 postings on the web, read them to see what the organization 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 potential organization/position combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally showing why you are a fantastic prospect for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the company at the job kiosk.
Fourth, modify your resume for each opportunity. The objective on your resume should exactly match the job you’re going after. 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 requirements. Especially at a Job Faire, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be simple to see that you’re a fit based on your resume.
Fifth, 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 understandably tagged 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 properly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any cologne or fragrance sparingly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
