BiPartition

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Getting Noticed at Career Fairs

Standing out at a Job Fair can make a difference in your job hunting. Career Faires are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a SF Bay Area Job Fair in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and a major job search company has 82 job faires scheduled for this year across the States.

How do you get to the real interviews at a Job Fair? The rivalry can be noteworthy, but you can help yourself stand out from the herd with advance homework. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward six-step process to prepare. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:

First, research the organizations that are going and pick your objectives. Use the World Wide Web to check out the companies that are there ahead of time. Go to their websites and see if they have their jobs listed. Pick a limited number to target, and get ready to spend up to an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than nine in a day, and three to 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’ll end up 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 organization is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the demands of the job. Make the language match. If the hiring organization 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 ‘brief sales pitch’ for each potential company/job combination. Write down a 90 second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally describing why you are a fantastic candidate for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from the company at the job booth.

Fourth, modify your resume for each position. 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 description. Especially at a Career Fair, 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, 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 clearly marked folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.

Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress well and be properly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or scent sparingly, if at all.

Remember to smile, and good hunting!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 2:58 am and is filed under Hall Of Net Resources, Sales Stuff, School of Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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