It’s all in your approach. I am no fan of job fairs. To me, they are wastes of time, but that is bad of me to discourage you when my job is to ENCOURGE! Many of us do not know what to say when we have an interview/appointment for which we have had time to study. Can you imagine ‘being on your feet’ in a NOISY and CROWDED room full of strangers and hiring managers who did NOT send us a personal invitation (i.e., they have not seen our resume and have no idea who we are)? This makes our job so much harder and uncomfortable. We have to sell this complex product (ourselves), to a stranger who has probably already been overwhelmed with all of the, “Hi! I am ….blah, blah, blah.” So just how does one elicit the interest of oneself to a stranger in 30 seconds or less? I’m “gonna” tell ya!
Step 1
YOU’VE GOT GAME!
You already know these hiring managers are only participating because “it is the right thing to do”. The corporation will probably get some big tax write-off or something. No one voluntarily WANTS a line of strangers rushing up to them in an unorganized manner to listen to them (most of you) babble about their past work experiences. So how do you differentiate yourself from the last 25 people who had no “Game”? You’ve gotta HOOK ’EM! You must snap these hiring managers out of their robotic stances and responses and come correct with your own personalized game plan. You want to make them believe you already had interest in them before you got there. You want to make them believe that you have already browsed their corporate websites for jobs, even if you hadn’t. You also DO NOT want to tell them who you are and what your experience is BEFORE you find out from them what types of jobs they have to offer and what skills they seek. This way, you will not “X” yourself out. You don’t want to tell them you are about X, Y, and Z when they are looking for A,B and C. You want them to tell you FIRST that they are about A,B and C and then you want to make them believe that you TOO are about A, B and C as WELL AS your own X,Y, and Z and whatever else they might be looking for!
So a line such as this should suffice: “Hi, I am name here. I browsed some of your open positions earlier in the week. Can you tell me in what areas of the company do open positions exist and what are some of the skills you are looking for?” You see…..it’s about S-T-R-A-T-E-G-Y and now….”YOU’VE GOT GAME!” You see….you’ve flipped it. Now, you have them talking about their company so YOU can decide if you want them instead of you standing there blah, blah, blah-ing about yourself when they may be half-listening because they have been listening to blah, blah, blah-ing all day.
Step 2
Once you have their attention and you’ve got ‘em talking, tell them you have applied via their website previously but you recently had your resume revamped to more clearly highlight your strengths and abilities and then SHOVE that copy in their faces!
Step 3
Get the name of the person you handed your resume to. When you get home and submit your resume on their website (and I strongly urge you to), when it asks where did you hear about the position, BE SURE to say from an internal employee and put down the person’s name that you spoke to at the job fair. Insert their name into your online profile so every time you apply for a position at this company, that name, which is a goldmine, can be referenced as a referral.
