Things to do BEFORE a Career Fair

Research Prospective Employers

Identify the prospective employers that most interest you. Don't immediately discount employers based on perceptions or misconceptions.

Once you have made a list of the key employers you want to meet at the fair, your task is to learn key facts about each of them so that you can showcase your knowledge to the company(s).

Examples of information you can obtain (from the organization's website, news organizations, and Internet searches):

• Organizational structure: Is there more than one location?

•  Key products/services: What does this company really do?

• Organizational culture: Some jobs are more formal (like finance), others value communication, or productivity, etc over other values.

• Hiring practices: How do I get hired?

Have a Clear Career Focus 

If a company asks you, "why are you here?" ... can you answer that clearly and succinctly? Before heading to the Career fair, sharpen your career focus. 

If you have no career focus, start with some career assessment and career exploration in Pathful Explore. 

If you know what you want to do, but want to be better able to express it, then consider these tactics for doing so:  Review job postings and use some of the words (keywords) used to describe your ideal job into your career focus;   Make a list of your skills and abilities;  Identify your key accomplishments from past educational and employment situations. 

Prepare Your Resume

In the ideal world of job-seeking, when attending a job fair you would bring a resume with you. This will allow the employer to remember you and have a simple way for following up with you.

Here is a generic template if starting from scratch. 

Rehearse Your Elevator Speech 

You're only going to get a short amount of time to make an impression on each company -- much less so than in a traditional job interview -- so the key for you is to develop and rehearse your elevator speech. As the name implies, an elevator speech is a relatively short -- typically 15 to 30 second commercial that job-seekers use in a variety of situations that briefly tells the person you are giving it to who you are, what makes you unique, and the benefits you can provide.

“Hi, my name is ___________. I have taken a lot of _______________ classes at Leyden, and I'm looking to_____________________.”

Practice Responses to Typical Interview Questions

• What do you really want to do in life?

• Why would you choose this career?

• What do you consider to be your greatest strengths and weaknesses?

• Describe the best job you've ever had.

• What makes you qualified for this position?

• What’s the most recent book you’ve read?

• What can you tell us about our company?

• What interests you about our products?

Questions That You Can Ask the Companies

• Can you describe a typical day for someone in this position?

• Why did you choose this career?

•  Can you describe the company’s management style?

• What do you think is the greatest opportunity facing the organization in the near future?

• Why did you come to work here? What keeps you here?

• What are the traits and skills of people who are the most successful within the organization?

• What changes do you anticipate in the organization?

• Are new employees assigned mentors?

Choosing Proper Career Fair Attire

Job-seekers must dress for success for all interviews, including career fairs. What is the proper career fair attire? For most career fairs -- certainly all professional career fairs -- it consists of a clean-cut, well-fitting, conservative look featuring darker colors (such as navy, black, slate). It is always safer to err on the side of dressing too conservatively. Besides the clothing issues, your strategy should be to cover all (or as many as possible) visible tattoos and display minimal piercings. Keep jewelry to a minimum.