Written by: Lokesh

• Student Perspectives

February 22nd, 2008

Fall and winter quarters at UW always seem to be busy on the career front. A bunch of career fairs catering to business, engineering and liberal arts majors juxtapose in no time, even before you start settling down from the long summer hiatus. What's the buzz about these events? What can you get out from these events? And more importantly, how should you go about it? In this post, I will attempt to share some of my experiences, insights, lessons learnt, etc about career fairs and hopefully a student perspective adds some value to the content. The below said discusses some key points about career fairs that would be worth considering when you do decide to visit a career fair.

Networking is the Key

It is the best way to make contacts with recruiters and end up getting interview calls. Every candidate has unique skills that are invaluable to an organization, but the hardest part is getting your foot across and making these organizations aware that you have something to offer. Look at the triangle matrix (Turn to page 14 for 'search strageties') for proven quantitative results.

Gauge the Competition

From a personal perspective, career fairs help you understand the reality. It gives you a sense of the competition that exists in the job market and at times accelerates your effort in the job process. For a visual and aural awakening, pay a visit to the "HUB ball rooms" during the career week season; this channel gives you a good perspective of the competition in the most tangible way. Candidates in well-clad outfits thronging around different stalls with a stash of resumes forming long lines to get a chance to impress the recruiter with a 60 second pitch. From a personal perspective, these scenes taught me how important it was to get serious on the job front, without these visual and aural experiences, I wouldn't have had any clue about the competition that stood in front of me. Sometimes, you just need a tiny reality-check indicator for some much needed inspiration during job-hunting process when the Seattle winter bogs you down.

Gain Experience

Not everybody gets everything right the first time. The same applies to your performance/experience, as I may term it in a career fair. Perfecting an elevator pitch is an art, as expected it takes practice. I remember the jitters that went through when I tried to articulate my pitch to the recruiters in the first career fair, The more experience you obtain in interacting with these stakeholders, the better you get in striking a good overall impression when you meet with your dream employer.

Do your Homework

I can't stress more about the importance of preparing for a career fair. Peruse through the career fair site, get an idea of the employers visiting the fair, identify potential firms and research about their internship or full-time programs/positions. Its way more effective to meet with a recruiter having a sound idea about the position that you are interested in and taking that 45-60 seconds to talk about your experiences and skill-set and their match to the position. After dealing with 50 odd clueless candidates and talking over the same points about their organization and positions, they might just find you a little more interesting and refreshing.

Look Smart

Dress up! There is nothing better than turning up to a potential employer in your best attire, looking spot-on professional. Putting up a professional image is not a value addition to the package that you are trying to sell. It is a basic component that is expected from every potential new hire. It just conveys to the recruiter that you are serious about your job search and that you are not one of those window-shoppers, who have time in hand and are interested to collect those well advertised baubles that sit in funky jars and bowls with the firms' tags attached to its outside.

I hope that was of some help. Feel free to share your feedback, comments, suggestions, etc. More to follow soon.

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Arsene Knows.