Astounding Words

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

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

First, research the companies that are going and pick your objectives. Use the World Wide Web to research the companies that are there before you even decide to go. Go to their sites and see if they have their job openings posted. Pick a rational number to target, and get ready to spend an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than seven in a day, and five or six is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring 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 should end up with a page or two of research for each company/job.

Second, if there are job postings on the web, read them to see what the hiring manager is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the terminology 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 ‘short sales pitch’ for each likely company/position combination. Write down a 90 second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally showing why you are a fantastic prospect for that position. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet people at the job kiosk.

Fourth, modify your resume for each job type. 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 Faire, 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, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress nicely and be fittingly groomed. Don’t over do-it (this isn’t a date!) and don’t underdress (no jeans or t-shirts, no matter how much you paid for them). Avoid strong cologne or perfume.

Finally, 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 distinctly marked folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.

Remember to smile, and good hunting!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Net Center, School of Selling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.