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Standing out at a Career Fair can make a difference in your search. Career Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a San Jose Area Job Fair in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and Dice has 82 job fairs scheduled for 2010 across the United States.
How do you compete at a Career Faire? The contention can be noteworthy, but you can help yourself leap out from the herd with advance preparation. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward 6-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 check out the companies that are there ahead of time. Go to their sites and see if they have their jobs posted. Pick a moderate number to target, and get ready to spend an hour or more researching each one. It’s hard to do more than seven in a day, and three to five is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring 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 should 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 accomplishments and skills to the demands 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 organization.
Third, create a ‘thumbnail sales pitch’ for each likely organization/job combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud showing why you are a special prospect for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from the company at the job stall.
Fourth, modify your resume for each job type. 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 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 quick 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 opportunity – bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a intelligibly marked folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
