English Corpus

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

How do you get to the real interviews at a Career Faire? The competition can be noteworthy, but you can help yourself leap out from the crowd with early planning. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward step-by-step process to prepare. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:

First, research the organizations that are going and pick your targets. Use the internet to research the companies that are there before you go. Go to their sites and see if they have their job openings listed. Pick a reasonable number to go after, and get ready to spend an hour or more researching each one. It’s hard to do more than ten in a day, and four or five is a much more reasonable target. For each company, you want to know: recent news, key product lines, and exectuve names. 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 openings on the web, read them to see what the hiring manager is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements 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 accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring company.

Third, create a ‘mini sales pitch’ for each potential organization/job combination. Write down a 60 second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally describing why you are a key prospect for that position. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the team from 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 going after. 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 understandably tagged folder. Keep them in a light briefcase or folio.

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

Remember to smile, and good hunting!