How to Stand Out at a Career Fair
It's that time of year when colleges, and other professional organizations, start hosting career fairs.
Follow these steps and you will be sure to make a great impression on a corporate recruiter!
1- Get a list of attending companies well in advance of the career fair. You can do this by contacting the campus career services office or the organization hosting the career fair.
2- If possible, try to get the names of specific recruiters and other professionals representing the companies at the career fair.
3- Review the attendee list and identify the 8-10 companies you are really interested in.
4- Spend at least an hour researching each of these companies via their Web site, Google News, LexisNexis, Factiva, blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn. Pay particular attention to recent news, trends in the industry, and job openings.
5- If you were able to find contact names as well, do research on LinkedIn and Google to find out as much as you can about these recruiters.
6- Come to the career fair prepared with a notebook, pen, index cards with your research and extra copies of your resume. Write down 3-4 GREAT questions for these recruiters based on your research (at best you're only going to have ten minutes with each company, so no need to go overboard... just enough to make a great impression).
A couple examples of great questions:
"I read in The New York Times last week that your firm is starting to use social media, such as Facebook, to attract candidates. What has been your ROI? Do you find better candidates through Facebook than career fairs?"
"I saw on an industry blog that your firm just won a $10 million contract with a popular consumer brand. How is that going to impact your staffing needs? What types of programs will you be implementing for that client?"
Follow these steps and you will be sure to make a great impression on a corporate recruiter!
1- Get a list of attending companies well in advance of the career fair. You can do this by contacting the campus career services office or the organization hosting the career fair.
2- If possible, try to get the names of specific recruiters and other professionals representing the companies at the career fair.
3- Review the attendee list and identify the 8-10 companies you are really interested in.
4- Spend at least an hour researching each of these companies via their Web site, Google News, LexisNexis, Factiva, blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn. Pay particular attention to recent news, trends in the industry, and job openings.
5- If you were able to find contact names as well, do research on LinkedIn and Google to find out as much as you can about these recruiters.
6- Come to the career fair prepared with a notebook, pen, index cards with your research and extra copies of your resume. Write down 3-4 GREAT questions for these recruiters based on your research (at best you're only going to have ten minutes with each company, so no need to go overboard... just enough to make a great impression).
A couple examples of great questions:
"I read in The New York Times last week that your firm is starting to use social media, such as Facebook, to attract candidates. What has been your ROI? Do you find better candidates through Facebook than career fairs?"
"I saw on an industry blog that your firm just won a $10 million contract with a popular consumer brand. How is that going to impact your staffing needs? What types of programs will you be implementing for that client?"
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