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How to get the most of a Careers Fair
Combine this with the fact that the same careers advice is available to virtually everyone, means that gaining a personal edge becomes of increasing importance. “Meeting recruiters face to face at Careers Fairs is a great way of showing potential recruiters who you are,” says Tom Harrison, Head of Business Development at recruitment experts Global Work Place. “It allows you to find out the targeted information you want and gives you the edge over job seekers who don’t take the chance to get up close and personal with recruiters. There are people at Careers Fairs who will probably work in the department that reads your applications and decides who to bring to interview. Putting a personality to a name is a great head start.”
Job recruitment careers fairs offer lots of benefits to graduates. If you’re ambitious and organised you can get a lot out of a career fair, including:
· Honing your interview skills – Even if you aren’t offered a job, talking to prospective employers about graduate appointments gives you valuable confidence and experience of interviews.
· Expanding your network – Meeting job recruiters and even fellow graduates helps you build useful contacts for future reference.
· Learning industry information – Speaking to job recruitment professionals in your chosen sector is a great way to learn about the industry.
· Gathering information about companies – Investigating the kind of graduate placements offered by a company tells you a lot about that organisation as a whole.
But how do you really get the best from a careers fair? Here are our Top Ten Tips:
1) Prepare – “Make sure you know which companies are attending in advance,” says Harrison. “Research them thoroughly, prioritize which you are most keen on and arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible about them.” Just as the eager graduate wants information about a prospective employer, the recruiters are looking closely at you as a candidate. Asking questions that you could have answered on a website will waste two sets of time and is one of the main complaints recruiters have at careers fairs.
2) Focus – Harrison says, “Let the companies you are interested in know you have researched them, and that you know more than just the name. Tell them you’re knowledgeable about something specific that might be newsy and topical, knowledge of the CEO’s career, the history of the company, their financial results, the corporate culture, corporate social responsibility policy, something like that.” Linking your interests with them as a potential employer immediately puts you ahead of other less prepared and less focussed attendees.
3) Rule yourself in (not out) – Most recruiters will already be advertising so identify the kind of person your selected company is seeking. Read careers sections online and print adverts in newspapers and see if you might be a good fit. Also you can get an idea if the company is the kind of place you would like to work in. “Rule yourself in,” says recruiting consultant Craig Coltrane, “but don’t rule yourself out. Talking to a company’s representatives will allow them to find qualities in you that you may not recognise in yourself. Never say ‘I can’t do it.’ Leave it to them to say that later on in the process.”
4) Don’t overload recruiters – Company representatives will be pleased to meet you –after all, that is what they are there for - particularly if you are well prepared. But they can’t devote the whole event to you. Make sure that you keep your questions focused and relevant and prepare an ‘elevator pitch’ in advance, which will give them the salient facts about you, your background and your goals in no more than two minutes. Feel free to bring evidence of your qualifications with you, but keep them in your bag unless they are asked for. “Take a CV, perhaps with a picture, and a business card or personal card to make it easier for the recruiters to remember you,” says Coltrane.
5) Know your objectives – Tom Harrison says, “No matter how amazing you are, you are unlikely to be offered a job at a careers fair. A more realistic objective is to agree to some kind of post-event follow up, an agreement with a recruiter to some kind of post-fair contact with a view to an assessment day or interview. This means if you walk away from a stand at a fair with a specific agreement for them to contact you, or vice versa, then you have succeeded.”
6) Look the part – Fairs aren’t a platform for formal admissions, but they could be the first point of contact with your target company. Consequently, it makes sense to look and act in a professional manner. That doesn’t mean you have to turn up in a formal business suit, but it’s probably best to leave your t-shirt and old pair of shorts at home.
7) Evaluate – A lot of successful applicants say that they knew the right company as soon as they talked to its representative; so, trust your instincts as much as your research. Make sure that you assess the people you meet – are they interested in you and your questions? Can they answer those questions easily and authoritatively? Do they seem professional? Meeting people face-to-face like this is as much about you making a judgement as it is about them providing you with relevant and comprehensive information.
8) What to do if the representatives can’t help you – On some occasions a representative might not know the answers to questions you’ve spent a long time researching, and might refer you to their website or other source of information. If you feel that you aren’t getting the answers you want, try and get the name and contact details of the individual at the company that you should be talking to. “After the fair,” Tom Harrison advises, “you can contact them, using the name of your contact at the fair and that they referred you to them. Personalizing correspondence is crucial and will really help you to stand out.”
9) Value yourself – This may sound flippant but it is important to remember that most recruiters have invested a lot of time, effort and resources into attending the fair. They have done so in order to meet, frankly, YOU. Therefore you don’t need to be going to the stand cap in hand or begging for their time. Be yourself, show your personality and remember that careers fair are beneficial to recruiters and candidates alike.
10) Enjoy! – An engaging smile at a careers fair, as in all walks of life, will endear you to people. Try not to exhaust yourself (there is a tendency at these fairs to cram every minute of the day with exhausting information) and take regular breaks to assess what you’ve learned. Don’t overburden yourself with leaflets. Take only what you need. And, above all, enjoy yourself.
