Getting Real Interviews at Career Faires
Standing out at a Career Fair can make a difference in your job hunt. Career Fairs 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 a major job search company has 82 job fairs scheduled for 2010 across the United States.
How do you compete at a Job Faire? The contention can be considerable, but you can help yourself leap out from the crowd with early preparation. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward step-by-step process to prepare. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, research the companies that are going and pick your targets. Use the web to research the organizations that are there beforehand. Go to their 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 or five 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 will end up with 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 hiring department 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 accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring organization.
Third, create a ‘thumbnail sales pitch’ for each potential organization/position combination. Write down a ninety second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud depicting why you are a key prospect for that job. 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 opportunity. 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 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 match based on your resume.
Fifth, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress well and be well 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, 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 intelligibly labeled folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
