Getting Noticed at a Career Event
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Standing out at a Job Faire can make a difference in your job search. Career Fairs are starting to pick up, and a major job search company is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a San Jose Area Job Faire in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and Dice has 82 career fairs scheduled for this year across the US.
How do you rise above the crowd at a Job Fair? The competition can be substantial, but you can help yourself surpass from the herd with advance preparation. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward step-by-step process to get ready. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the organizations that are going and pick your objectives. Use the internet to check out the organizations that are there ahead of time. Go to their websites and see if they have their job openings listed. Pick a reasonable number to target, and get ready to spend an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than eight in a day, and four to 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 company is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the requirements 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 ‘brief sales pitch’ for each potential company/position combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat out loud depicting why you are a special prospect for that job. 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 want. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the achievements and skills that most clearly match the job prerequisites. 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 match based on your resume.
Fifth, practice your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each position - bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a understandably tagged folder. Keep them in a lightweight 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 eau de cologne or perfume meagerly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
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