College career fair is an on campus meet and greet between potential employees (students) and potential employers (companies and government agencies). Your school is likely to have multiple career fairs at different time during the year (i.e. fall, winter, spring) and there might even be an engineering specific career fair. My advice is to go to the engineering career fair for sure, but make sure you also look up the list of companies at the general career fairs (should be on the career center website) to see if there are engineering companies in the general career fairs that you can go meet with as well. It’s easy to write off going to the career fair as a waste of time, but I will tell you this: I have gotten both an internship and job offers from the career fairs that I have attended. Although there are definitely some companies that go to career fairs to promote themselves rather than do any serious hiring, I have been part of company recruiting teams that go to the college career fairs to really find candidates to hire. Since I have been on both sides (being both a company’s representative and a student) at many career fairs, here are 6 do’s and don’t that you should know to be effective at these events.
Don’t Dress Like You are Going to the Gym
This is the biggest turnoff for recruiters. I recommend treating this meet and greet like a job interview, so dress as if you are going to a job interview. If you are not dressed appropriately, the company representatives will not take you seriously.
Do Have Your Resume Ready
Make sure your resume has been proofread and ready to be given to company representatives. Go online before the career fair and look up how many companies will be at the career fair and how many to are interested in talking with. Make sure to have enough copies for the companies that you plan to talk to and maybe print out as many resumes as the amount of companies that will be present. For companies that you are interested in working for, don’t forget to give the company representatives your resume when you finish speaking with them.
Do A Little Bit of Research
Besides looking up to see what companies will attend the career fair, you should also go to each company’s website to learn a little bit more about it. When looking through the website think about whether or not you can see yourself working at this particular company. Make a priority list of companies you are interested in to help you prioritize your booth visits. While on the engineering company’s website, look for interesting facts and projects for that company and you can even use them as part of your conversation with the company’s representative.
Don’t Be Shy
The whole point of going to a career fair is to talk with potential employers, so that’s what you should do! In fact, since you are there to look for a job, you should be the one making the first move. The first step is to make eye contact and approach the representative for a company you want to work for. Briefly introduce yourself and ask him or her for his or her role at the company. The conversation should flow naturally from there, but if you need help on topics of discussion you can ask the company representative about an interesting project that he or she has done, what he or she like best about working for the company, what advice he or she would give someone in your current situation, etc…
Do Ask for as Many Business Cards as Possible
At the end of your conversation with the company representative, always ask for his or her business card. Not only is it a great way to remember who you spoke with, but it is also an excellent way to extend your connection with this person outside of the career fair. Take a few minutes right after the career fair to jot down some of the conversations you had with each of the company representative on the back of his or her business card. A few days after the career fair send this person an email recounting your conversation and thank him or her for talking with you. If this person have a LinkedIn account, you can even send a connection request to stay in touch.
Don’t Overload on Free Stuff
The free pens and note pads sure look tempting, but don’t overload on getting the free stuff. Be focus and remember the reason why you are giving up a few hours of your time to be at the career fair: it’s to get a job, not to bring back junk to your place. When you are carrying bags of freebies around, the company representatives will question your motive of why you are at the career fair and might not give you the attention or time that you need to sell yourself.
Are there any other do’s and don’t that I missed regarding career fairs? If so, provide your comments below.