Standing out at a Career Faire can make a difference in your job hunting. Career Faires are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a Silicon Valley Job Fair in early 2010, 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 rise above the crowd at a Career Fair? The contention can be sizeable, but you can help yourself stand out from the crowd with advance homework. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward six-step process to prepare. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, research the organizations that are going and pick your targets. Use the internet to check out the organizations that are there before you go. Go to their internet sites and see if they have their openings posted. Pick a sane number to go after, and get ready to spend an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than nine in a day, and three or four is a much more reasonable target. For each company, 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’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 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 organization.
Third, create a ‘brief sales pitch’ for each likely company/position combination. Write down a 60 second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud showing why you are a great candidate for that position. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet 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 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 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 match 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 spot - bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a distinctly tagged folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!