Getting Real Interviews at Career Faires
Standing out at a Career Faire can make a difference in your job search. Career Faires 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 job fairs scheduled for this year across the US.
How do you get to the real interviews at a Job Faire? The rivalry can be sizeable, but you can help yourself leap out from the herd with early homework. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward six-step process to get ready. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the organizations that are going and pick your objectives. Use the web to check out the organizations that are there beforehand. Go to their websites and see if they have their job openings listed. 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 8 in a day, and four or five is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring 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 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 requirements of the job. Make the language 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 organization.
Third, create a ‘short sales pitch’ for each likely organization/position combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally describing why you are a great prospect for that job. 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 position 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 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 very easy 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 intelligibly tagged folder. Keep them in a light briefcase or folio.
Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress well and be fittingly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any cologne or perfume sparingly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!