Career Fair Followup

What to do after the Fair is over.

Attendess in line for the 2009 UW Spring Career FairWith nearly 4,500 UW students and alumni in attendance, the 2009 UW Spring Career Fair was the largest in the thirteen years that the UW Career Center has been putting it on.  Attendees from all around campus, of all majors and levels, attended with an increased attendance by alumni as well.

Now that the event is over though, what should attendees do?

"It's easy," says Patrick Chidsey, senior career counselor.  "Attendees need to follow up and send thank you's to recruiters they met with. It doesn't matter how you send it or in what form, just make sure you do." continued Chidsey.

To ensure the Fair is an ongoing success, here are some additional tips:

  • Submit your resume to employer websites and/or postings in our HuskyJobs system, if you haven't already.
  • Send a Thank You. Most people at the job fair won't. Cite something specific from your interview: "I'm taking your advice about my clips on the dog show and weeding them down to just one." This will help make you memorable -- and show that you can take good editing.
  • Reflect on your system, your execution, and your results. What might you have done more effectively? Make some initial plans for improvement before the next career fair.
  • Plan to follow up with each recruiter about two weeks after the career fair. Contact them and express your continued interest with the organization, your assurance of your ability to contribute to the organization, and get more information about next steps in the process.
  • Consider developing some sort of system for keeping track of all the recruiters and potential job leads.
  • Remember to find other sources of job leads. Career fairs are a good source, but there are many other ways to generate job leads.

Resources for attendees to learn more about each of these, and more, include:

And, last but not least, share your experience!  Our counselors and staff are regularly commenting and sharing tidbits on the Husky Career Blog -- share yours too!