» Competing Successfully at Career Faires

Competing Successfully at Career Faires

January 29th, 2010 admin

Standing out at a Career Faire can make a difference in your career search. Career Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a Bay Area Career Fair in January, 10 companies as showing up, and Dice has 82 job faires scheduled for this year across the States.

How do you get to the real interviews at a Career Faire? The competition can be considerable, but you can help yourself stand out from the crowd with early planning. At AA-Careers, we have a simple step-by-step process to prepare. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:

First, investigate the companies 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 websites and see if they have their job openings posted. Pick a small number to go after, and get ready to spend up to an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than 10 in a day, and three or four is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring organization, 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 postings on the web, read them to see what the company is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the requirements 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 ‘mini sales pitch’ for each likely organization/position combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud describing why you are a fantastic candidate for that position. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet people at the job kiosk.

Fourth, modify your resume for each position. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position you’re targeting. 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 Job 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 fit based on your resume.

Fifth, rehearse 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 clearly 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 well groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or scent sparingly, if at all.

Remember to smile, and good hunting!

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