Standing out at Job Faires
Standing out at a Career Fair can make a difference in your job hunting. Job Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a SF Bay Area Career Faire in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and Dice has 82 career faires scheduled for this year across the United States.
How do you compete at a Job Faire? The competition can be substantial, but you can help yourself leap out from the herd with advance homework. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward six-step process to get ready. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, research the companies that are going and pick your objectives. Use the internet to research the organizations that are there before you even decide to go. Go to their internet sites and see if they have their jobs listed. Pick a sound number to target, and get ready to spend an hour or more researching each one. It’s hard to do more than 9 in a day, and four to six is a much more reasonable target. For each 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 department is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements and skills to the requirements of the job. Make the terminology match. If the hiring organization 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 potential company/position combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud showing why you are a key prospect 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 job type. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position you’re want. 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 description. 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 simple to see that you’re a match based on your resume.
Fifth, 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 understandably tagged 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 cologne or fragrance meagerly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
