Job Fair Networking Strategy- Interacting with Company Representatives

Posted by Jason Lee

November 6, 2009

Beyond knowing the ins-and-outs of job fair resumes, you also need to practice your job-fair-networking abilities in order to master the job fair. In addition to being great places to drop many resumes, job fairs are great places to interact with company representatives. In fact, it is necessary to speak with those representatives in order to leave your resume with them. You will want to leave a good impression of yourself with the representative that will last long enough for them to pull your resume out of a huge stack for later review.

Job fair networking involves speaking with, getting to know, and extracting contact details from company representatives and recruiters. You need to go through this process because employers want to check that job fair attendants are good fits for the company. Whether or not you mesh with other people in the company is difficult to show on a piece of paper, so you have to pro-actively prove to the representative that you are in fact a good fit. A good place to begin is JobConcierge.com that has an extensive list of job fairs and career fairs online.

Before dropping your resume, you should try to seek out the company's senior managers or hiring managers. Other employees are great, too, but you want the people with influence to remember that you are a great candidate for the job they'll be making the decisions about who to hire at the end of the day.

Additionally, before speaking with the representatives, you should have prepared a short statement (thirty seconds to one minute) about your background, why you would be a good fit, and why you are enthusiastic about working for the company. This statement does not need to be memorized, but you will need to have some outline of what you want to say to the recruiters before you go. You want the representative to know that you aren't just there to drop resumes at every stand, desperately hoping to catch any interview thrown your way. It would be a good idea to find a friend before the fair and practice your response to the question, Can you tell me a little about yourself? Other possible questions may revolve around your potential career plans or past work experience.

By researching companies before heading out to the job fair, you will also be able to show companies how you can help their business going forward. If you know from your research that the company is starting new projects in Japan, you will be able to let them know that you are fluent in Japanese, have worked in Japan before, and can lead projects there by being the first line of management in employing the native workers (but only if these are all true). This is just another way that you can leave a good and lasting impression by researching in advance.

Before you go to your next job fair, don't forget to thoroughly practice, research, and prepare yourself. We recommend you review JobConcierge.com for career advice and more job fair information. This is the best way to make sure you leave a good impression with each representative at the fair. If you're fortunate, your networking preparation (and strong resume) will result in the start of a new career.

JobConcierge offers human powered job search service - Real people search through 300 job sites and submit applications. JobConcierge job search optimization is known for its extensive career fair list