What to do and not to do at a Career Fair

bdavis — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:52:55 +0000

Here are the keys to successfully navigating a career or job fair. Follow these simple rules and you should achieve success in this important strategic tool of job-hunting.

Do have a specific strategy for maximizing your time at the event. And don’t bother spending time with recruiters from companies that do not interest you.

Do pre-register for the event, and do attempt to get the list of attending companies before the fair.

Don’t eliminate companies because they are recruiting for positions outside your field; take the time to network with the recruiter and get the name of a person for your particular career field.

Do attempt to research basic information about each company you hope to interview with at the job fair. A common career fair question from recruiters is, “Why do you want to work for our company?”

Don’t just drop off your resume with the recruiter and walk off.

Do prepare a one-minute “personal commercial” that focuses on the unique benefits you can offer the employer – your unique selling proposition.

Do be prepared to talk about your work experiences, skills, and abilities. And for college students, do be prepared for a question about your GPA by some recruiters.

Don’t be afraid or intimidated by the recruiter; he or she is there to do a job — to meet and screen potential candidates.

Do have a few questions prepared for each recruiter, but don’t ask questions that any good job-seeker should already know, such as “What does your company do?”

Do say the recruiter’s name several times during your conversation, even if you have to keep glancing at the recruiter’s nametag and do get a business card from each recruiter.

Don’t forget to eliminate such bad habits as playing with your hair, chewing gum, fidgeting, rocking from side-to-side, acting distracted, rubbing your nose, etc.

Do remember all the keys to successful interviewing, including a firm handshake, a warm smile, eye contact, and a strong voice.

Don’t use filler words such as “um”, “like”, “you know.”

Do bring enough copies of your resume to the career fair. And do bring different versions of your resume if you are searching for different types of jobs.

Do take advantage of the time you have to build rapport with each recruiter, but don’t monopolize their time.

Don’t ever just walk up to a booth and interrupt a current conversation; wait your turn and be polite.

Do dress professionally — business professional is always the safe choice.

Don’t waste the opportunity to network, not only with the recruiters, but with fellow job-seekers and other professionals in attendance at the career fair.

Don’t ever say anything negative to the recruiter about your college or previous jobs, companies, or supervisors.

Do be sure to ask about the hiring process of each company, but don’t ask too many “What’s in it for me?” questions (salary, vacation, benefits, etc…)

Do take the initiative and ask about the next step in the process. And do be prepared to follow-up all job leads.

Do be sure to follow-up with each opportunity Call and leave a message on their voicemail right after the job fair, but at a minimum you should send each recruiter a thank you letter.

Translating Military Service For The Civilian Work World

bdavis — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:34:07 +0000

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As Johnny and Jane come marching back from war to prepare for the next chapter of their lives, they face the daunting challenge of turning their military experience into machine-readable resumes and elevator speeches that convince corporate recruiters to give them a second look.

“The novelette of their experience in the military,” says Sherrill Curtis, doesn’t always translate clearly.

Agrees Carl Blum, “The hardest problem they have is translating their military experience into civilian language so a recruiter can understand what they have to offer.

Curtis, Blum, and Blum’s partner in an organization called Tip of the Arrow, Bob Deissig, and Sgt. Major James Clark were the prime movers of a program last month at New Jersey’s Ft. Dix called “Ultimate Warrior Career Workshops and Job Fair.”

They had plenty of help. The Garden State (New Jersey) SHRM council signed on early to the project, supplying dozens of recruiters, supplemented by career coaches from the state’s professional association, and representatives from federal agencies and area colleges.

But this was no ordinary job fair, although some 70 employers showed up and Blum tells us 200 of the participants expect offers.

What made this different were the one-on-one counseling sessions and workshops that prepped the servicemen and women — and some dependents — for the next day’s recruiter meet and greet.

Blum and Deissig, who founded Tip of the Arrow, began working with returning soldiers at Ft. Dix last year. Retired from careers in staffing and search, they both quickly discovered that while the men and women they met had held positions of leadership and responsibility, they were not skilled at explaining to a recruiter how what they did had value in the corporate world.

Blum told a story about a 24-year-old National Guardsman returned from Iraq who described himself as a clerk who had also been in charge of a security detail.

“I had to draw it out of him, really talk to him about what he did,” Blum says, learning the soldier had traveled Iraq returning money recovered from captured terrorists to their victims. In another assignment, he was in charge of protecting teachers and students from attack.

Saying he was a military clerk who also had worked security wouldn’t have meant as much to a corporate recruiter as explaining he was entrusted with a small fortune in cash and was responsible for the lives of a classroom full of children. Putting it that way, Blum says, lets a recruiter know that the soldier in front of them has integrity and has handled more responsibility than any job they may have is likely to require.

When Blum and Deissig connected with Curtis, who heads the state council’s Workforce Readiness committee, they found a firecracker of organization who mobilized the council and local chapters to provide the training the military personnel would need to launch successful civilian careers.

“I saw bright, articulate people,” Curtis reports. But like so many workers in the civilian world seeking a career change, “they have a very difficult time explaining what they are, what they have done, and how it applies.”

Career coaches and professional recruiters met one-on-one with the nearly 500 personnel — many of them Army — who attended the workshop the day before the job fair. The volunteers would review resumes, teach basic job hunting techniques — there was a how-to session on career networking — and even do role-playing to help the job seekers get a feel for interviewing.

There was a panel of experienced, senior recruiters to answer audience questions on everything from what to wear to concerns about military related disabilities. International recruiting consultant Gerry Crispin, a principal in CareerXroads, talked about using technology for job searching. He also set up a LinkedIn group to carry on the day’s work.

The goal of the workshops was to get the military job seekers ready to “meet with an employer with confidence and articulate what they have done and how it applies to their job,” Curtis adds.

Curtis and Tip of the Arrow, which was founded to provide just that kind of help, are hoping that other state SHRM councils will pick up on the project and hold their own workshops and job fairs, with the Ft. Dix program as a model.

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What to do and not to do at a Career Fair

Translating Military Service For The Civilian Work World