What’s that sound? Oh nothing, just the sound of college students across the nation running in fright as they think about blazers, padfolios, and resumes- oh my!
In all seriousness, career fair season is upon us, my dudes. While I have come to love this time of year, I know that your 1st, 5th, or 50th career fair can be scary. But don’t fret! With plenty of career fair experiences under our belts, Katie and I have developed a list of tips to help you make it through. In fact, we guarantee you’ll feel better prepared to waltz into that conference room or gymnasium and rock it after gathering ideas from this post. Interested? Read on!
1. You gotta dress for success. It always seems like the importance of what you wear to career fairs is downplayed (Well, not at Iowa State.. thanks, Mike Gaul!). The saying “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”? Yeah, there’s a lot of truth to that. This doesn’t mean you need to buy the most expensive blazer out there, but it does mean that whatever you wear should be modest, business professional that fits you well. This means dress pants, collared dress shirt and tie, blazer, and dress shoes for the guys. Ladies, you have some options from dressy tanks and skirts, to A-line dresses with a blazer. I always like to think “do I look like a lawyer?” If the answer’s yes, you’re good!
Emily’s pro tip: wear comfy shoes. They may not always be the cutest, but having happy feet sure beats walking around like a duck all day because your feet hurt.
Katie’s pro tip: try on your outfit BEFORE the day of the event. I decided to attend the business career fair last week, but I didn’t try on my blazer with my new skirt until 5 minutes before I was planning to take off. Long story short, the skirt didn’t look good with the blazer, but the zipper on the skirt broke and I was trapped in. After 10 minutes of fighting the skirt, I called Emily over and she miraculously broke the zipper even further in order to set me free. Save yourself a lot of time, anxiety and a zipper and pick out your outfit before the last possible minute.
2. Think you’ve printed enough copies of your resume? Think again. Planning to print 5 copies? Print 10. There are a couple of reasons why this might be a good idea, one being that it always seems like you will end up going to a company or two last minute. Even though you will make a detailed game plan (see point #3), it’s just human nature to impulsively talk to the tech company that wasn’t even on your radar. The other reason is that you may end up gifting away more than one resume at a booth. There’s a chance you could chat with two reps at a booth who may work in different offices or branches of the same company. In that case, it might be a good idea to pass a resume around to both of them- the more, the merrier!
Emily’s pro tip: Focus more on the content of your resume and less on what it’s printed on. That’s right, I’m telling you to ditch the resume paper. There’s nothing wrong with resume paper and it does look nice, but what’s on your resume matters much more than the paperweight you chose to print it on.
Katie’s pro tip: Don’t carry your resumes around in a ripped-up folder from high school. I highly recommend getting some sort of padfolio to house your resumes, notes and business cards you’ll collect at the booths you visit.
3. Make a game plan ahead of time and know it well. All great battles are won by studying the career fair’s site a few days before and writing down all the companies you want to visit. Exaggerating? Maybe- but it’s still a good idea to know who you want to talk to before you show up. The day of the career fair will be a cluster and you will probably be at least a little bit jittery. By having this part done, you can simply walk into the event with the companies you want to talk to already in mind!
Emily’s pro tip: When making your list, pick a mix of companies big and small, dream job and considering, competitive and ‘new kids on the block’. Not only will this help you explore new internship or career options, it will also help you from putting all your eggs in one basket. Company A isn’t hiring? Okay, just move on to Company B, C, D…
Katie’s pro tip: Pay attention to the time of day you plan to attend. Sometimes being the first person at a booth isn’t the best idea, but you also don’t want to walk up as things are closing down either. I’ve found that starting the rounds about an hour into the event has been the best time for me to visit.
4. Do your homework. That list you just made? Awesome. Now take an hour and look up details on every company you are interested in. This could be specific details about a position, such as wages, or details about the company in general, like number of employees. Take notes and stick it in your padfolio. On the same sheet, write a few questions for each position or company- but make sure they are questions you couldn’t have answered yourself by looking at the website!
Emily’s pro tip: Don’t be afraid to ask open ended, no-right-answer kind of questions. The people at the booths have worked for this company, likely for at least a little while. Ask them things like “what’s your favorite part about working for company X?” or “What types of mentorship will I get in X role?”
Katie’s pro tip: Be prepared to answer specific questions from recruiters. If you really hit it off they might ask interview type questions such as “what about X company sparked your interest?” or “what past experiences would make you a good fit for X position?” You can never be too prepared in this situation.
5. Ditch the elevator pitch. You heard it here folks: I think the elevator pitch is dead. The idea is there, but man, think about how many times the company you want to talk to has heard the same rehearsed mini presentation in that day alone? My philosophy might be different than others’ on this and that’s okay, but if you really want to stand out, my recommendation is to ditch the typical “elevator speech” and instead have a meaningful conversation with recruiters. Use a casual but professional tone, make great eye contact, and banter back and forth as you would with an old friend. There’s nothing stranger than walking up to a booth and letting your mouth quickly diarrhea out the 30-second memorized speech you worked on for weeks, shoving a resume to them, and then awkwardly standing there.
Emily’s pro tip: Try to think of ways to smoothly slip details about yourself into the conversation, making it seem as a natural part of your visit instead of you bragging about yourself. For instance, if you consistently volunteer with your church at college and a recruiter tells you that a large part of their internship program is community service, you might want to respond by saying something like: “Wow, that is an awesome initiative! I spend two nights a week volunteering with the campus church’s youth group, so community service is something that I really enjoy.” See how that works?
Katie’s pro tip: Even awkward people like me can be successful at the dreaded small talk that is required at these types of events. I do think about what my “elevator pitch” is going to sound like prior to the event, though. I may write out a few points that I’ll be sure to touch on, but I try to ask as many questions as I can initially to keep the conversation rolling. There’s nothing worse than running out of things to talk about with a recruiter and having to awkwardly dismiss yourself from their booth without giving away any resumes. I also “practice” a few times on companies I don’t really care about before heading to the tables that I hope to hit it off with.
6. Give yourself plenty of time, and then some more. The only thing worse than not getting to meet with a company you’re interested in at all is spending too much time at one company, leaving you to awkwardly and quickly wrap up the conversation so you can run to your next class. At a large career fair, you’ll want to plan for an average of 15-20 minutes at each booth, and even more time at a smaller or more intimate event. If you think you’ve budgeted enough time for your career fair visit, give yourself another 20 minutes. Even if you’re not the most talkative person, time will go faster than you think!
Emily’s pro tip: Don’t short yourself time at a booth just because you feel like you are taking too long. Just because the person in front of you only took 3 minutes doesn’t mean you have to. Take your time, be thorough, and make sure you get all your questions. Recruiters work for you!
Katie’s pro tip: I deem career fair day as “vacation day” from my regular life, so I usually skip the whole day of class. I hate feeling rushed, especially when I’m nervous, so it has helped to calm my nerves by cancelling all of my other commitments. When I’m done at the career fair, I make the most of my vacation day by spending time outdoors. In fact, I received two interview offers while hiking at Ledges!
7. Plan for a strikeout or two. Yes, I just told you to expect to fail. No, there’s not much that you can do about it. Let me explain: it could be your nerves, a disappointing surprise that a company isn’t hiring, an awkward company rep to talk to, or any mix of things and it’s likely that at least one company visit won’t go as planned. That’s okay! We plan to talk to extra companies so we can diminish the blow when you have your disaster of the day.
Emily’s pro tip: Visit the company you’re least interested in first. This way, if you have a little blunder (or completely nose dive) you haven’t wasted an opportunity to make a great first impression with a company you’re passionate about!
Katie’s pro tip: Like I mentioned before, you’re bound to have an awkward conversation at least once throughout the day. Never fear though! The best part of it all is that you likely don’t know anyone. If you make a fool of yourself the recruiter will forget because they will have plenty of other awkward conversations with people who are less prepared than you.
8. That company you don’t think you’re interested in? Visit them anyways. Yes, pick a company you have little investment in to start your career fair trip, but also don’t be afraid to step outside the box and chat with a company you haven’t really considered before. Maybe you’ll find something you like or maybe you won’t, but by doing so you widen your scope on whatever industry you’re interested in pursuing a career in. And, you could surprise yourself with an internship or job offer you never expected!
Emily’s pro tip: Try to find a company you know nothing about to chat with. You don’t even have to frame it as seeking for an opportunity. Instead, make it about learning something new!
Katie’s pro tip: Also keep this in mind when you’re filling out online applications after the day is over. If there is a company you discover, but didn’t talk to at career fair, don’t be afraid to fill out their online application!
9. Get ready to add to your rolodex. If you were born after the 1990’s, you might not even know what a rolodex is (if that’s the case, go look it up on Wikipedia and then come back). Career fairs aren’t just for the job hunt, they are also a networking opportunity! When company reps force feed you a business card, don’t just stuff them in your padfolio and forget about them. Take them all home and analyze each one. Sort them, manually file them, take the information down in an excel sheet, take pictures of them- whatever you have to do to catalog and index the contact information for the people you just met. Whether it is the hunt for the perfect internship next year or a quest to get more information for a class project, you never know when you might need to call on your new contacts!
Emily’s pro tip: Try to maintain a record of where you got each person’s card, whether it was at a career fair or another function like a meeting. Write this on the back of the card or put it on a spreadsheet somewhere. That way, if you contact them you can jog their memory as to who you are!
Katie’s pro tip: I can’t even remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, much less who I spoke to at a career fair. I’m going to take Emily’s advice on this one!
10. Just because the career fair is over, doesn’t mean your work is. I’m guessing that if you’ve read this post in its entirety you’re looking for a way to set yourself apart. Welp, here’s the tip you’ve been looking for. Go the extra mile and follow up with most, if not all, of the people you talk to at career fair. If you just had a conversation with them, thank them for their time. If you need to apply online for a position, go do that and then email the people you chatted with to let them know you did so. If you came up with additional questions about the company, ask them. Make sure to use a specific subject line and include in the body of the email a few details about who you are (i.e. your major, what you talked about). Make sure to include contact info and leave the message open ended in hopes of a response!
Emily’s pro tip: When following up with company reps after a career fair, don’t be afraid to attach a PDF of your resume to your email. While employment and recruitment standards at each organization vary so it’s not a sure-fire way to get hired, the worst they can do is disregard the attachment. This will also help them remember who you are and what an awesome candidate you would be for their internship or job.
Katie’s pro tip: Take Emily’s advice from #9 and make sure to collect business cards. If you’re like me, you can’t remember anyone’s name, and writing thank you notes is awfully difficult if you don’t know who you’re writing it to. This will also encourage recruiters to follow up with you shortly after career fair, and not two months later when they are finally getting around to hiring.
These tips have helped us calm our nerves and find success at career fairs! What are some of your favorite career fair tips? Let us know in the comments below!
