Standing out at a Job Fair can make a difference in your career search. Job Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a SF Bay Area Career Fair in January, 10 companies as showing up, and a major job search company has 82 job faires scheduled for 2010 across the United States.
How do you stand out at a Job Faire? The competition can be significant, but you can help yourself leap out from the herd with early homework. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward step-by-step process to get ready. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the companies that are going and pick your objectives. Use the internet to check out the organizations that are there beforehand. Go to their websites and see if they have their job openings posted. Pick a limited number to go after, and get ready to spend an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than ten in a day, and 3-5 is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring company, you want to know: key product lines, recent news, and executive names. 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 company is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the nomenclature 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 ‘mini sales pitch’ for each potential company/job combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud depicting why you are a good candidate 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 opportunity. The objective on your resume should exactly match the job you’re aiming for. 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 a no-brainer to see that you’re a match based on your resume.
Fifth, 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 tagged folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.
Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress nicely and be fittingly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or scent meagerly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!