Posted by admin on February 7th, 2010
Standing out at a Career Faire can make a difference in your search. Career Faires are starting to pick up, and a major job search company is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a Silicon Valley Job Faire in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and Dice has 82 job fairs scheduled for 2010 across the US.
How do you compete at a Job Faire? The competition can be noteworthy, but you can help yourself stick out from the gang with early planning. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward 6-step process to get ready. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the companies that are going and pick your targets. Use the World Wide Web to research the organizations that are there beforehand. Go to their web sites and see if they have their openings listed. Pick a limited number to go after, and get ready to spend up to an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than 8 in a day, and three or four is a much more reasonable target. For each company, you want to know: recent news, key product lines, and exectuve names. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You’ll 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 hiring manager is looking for. Create a mapping of your achievements 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 ninety second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally describing why you are a special candidate for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the company at the job stall.
Fourth, modify your resume for each position. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position 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 requirements. Especially at a Job Faire, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be simple 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 clearly 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 properly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or fragrance sparingly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
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