Career Fairs and Expos

[wyvrn]

Graduating this summer and making the rounds on the local career fair circuit. There seem to be a lot of teaching, US Post Office, and Financial services jobs. Usually there are 3-5 IT jobs per fair, and the line of people applying for each stretches out the door hehehe. My convo with recruiters usually goes something like this:

Me: Hi I'm Robert. What type of positions are you looking to fill? (or tell me a little about your company)

Them: We have these 3 positions open (I look back at the line of 75 people trailing me). Let me take your resume and we'll call you in 2-3 weeks.

Me: Ok thanks a lot for your time.


Sometimes I talk to the recruiters for a few minutes just to get a little extra info on their company. I actually got one job offer as a result of going to a fair, but it was at a pay rate lower than what I am asking and was part time. I know IT jobs are hurting, but I don't see a lot of variety out there either. Looks like I am either going to be a financial broker or work in a call center.

 

[Ness]

Do your best to shoot the bull with someone. They are likely to remember you if they had more of a conversation with you than everyone else in that line. You might try to put your resume in a folder or staple a business card in it so they can take note of which one is yours when you are talking to them. STAND OUT!

 

[Jzero]

I dunno but you get lots of free stuff, so you might as well stop by

 

[JoPh]

no.

 

[wyvrn]

Originally posted by: ness1469
Do your best to shoot the bull with someone. They are likely to remember you if they had more of a conversation with you than everyone else in that line. You might try to put your resume in a folder or staple a business card in it so they can take note of which one is yours when you are talking to them. STAND OUT!

Thanks for the tip. I gotta print out some business cards. I also thought about burning a cd with some of my previous projects on there, but don't know if it would make a difference.

 

[Aharami]

yes they work. i just go around dropping my resume off and chat for a bit with the reps. i got my current job thru a school career fair

 

[yobarman]

never actually went to em, and i heard from my roomate that it's basically a crapload of people in a room trying to get a job. I think this is a terrible way of going about getting a job. Try and find a comanies you like and send them your resume and waht not. I think it's much less hassle.

 

[GoodToGo]

Georgia Tech boasts the biggest career fair of them all (or at last thats what they claim :roll: ). Last time, around 300 companies showed up for the career fair and I can tell you, it was a bunch of bull. First of all the people who showed up there were not engineers, architects, managers etc. They were HR people who did not know jack about the positions available. All they would do is flash their perfect white teeth, take your resume, and tell you to put your resume on Monstertrak. I have had more luck talking with actual engineers (I am a Mechanical engineer) so if you have a career fair coming up (or going on), talk with companies that send engineers or actual technical people. Get acquainted with them. Talk about your classes, projects, work experience, what skills you have blah blah. Unless you have absolutely amazing skills, the HR people will not show the slightest interest and I might as well tell you that you are wasting your time.

edit: stupid spelling

 

[Turkish]

They are worthless here at Virginia Tech.

In my 4 years, I never heard of anyone finding a job through them (and I have friends with 3.9/4.0 GPAs).

 

[sohcrates]

Job fairs back a few years ago when i was in school were halfways decent for some of my friends. Although they were more meat market than "job fair"

After 9/11 and the economy tanking though they really turned ugly. It was sad.

I actually got my job offer through a job fair pre-9/11. But i only went to about 3 companies i was interested in.

I think that's kind of the key, go talk to a small selection or to the smaller companies. At least they are more interesting.

I always laughed at the 100+ people in line for IBM and what not..."Here's my resume, put it into your computer"...repeat

 

[Kadarin]

While I was unemployed, I went to one and found it a worthless experience.

 

[xboxist]

They are way overhyped. I've attended a couple, and they're only good for basic, entry-level jobs that require basic skills.

 

[gotsmack]

they suck at average schools, but they get better as your school's ranking goes up.

 

[drum]

i was just at one last friday. besides there being nothing but marketing and accounting, one company had Electrical Engineer posted on their board behind them. So of course I asked about it. OH thats a SALES position. wtf :disgust: The reps had no clue about available positions. hopefully i won't be stuck working at ups the rest of my life :mad;

 

[radioouman]

Yes, they work. I went to one that was at my college and landed a 42k a year job from it. (Actually, it just got me a real interview, which landed the job, and then six months later I was bumped up to 45k.)

 

[Beattie]

They are pointless. You get just about the same level of interaction by submitting your resume online. The people that are at those things arent the people that will be your boss, they are almost always HR people and are therefore unable to have an intelligent conversation about availible positions.

 

[SethK28]

Friend of mine got a nice job with IBM last year at our schools career fair.......they flew him out twice for interviews. He made $65k starting out. He did however have alot of experience


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[Ness]

The problem with you guys getting turned down is that most of these companies know exactly what they are looking for, and at a career fair, odds are they'll find a handful of people fitting the qualification. So if you aren't it, don't expect them to settle.

Companies want mainly two things out of a person when they have their choice like at a career fair: Experience directly in the field and formal education.

If you've worked in the field but haven't been to school for it, you are at a disadvantage.
If you've been to school and seeking your first job (especially with no internships/co-ops), good luck with that!

If you've had multiple interships/co-ops, completed formal education*, and had a job in the field, you'll have the best chance.


*High GPA does NOT guarantee the best results. Sometimes companies go for the guy that is B average because they know he's probably less likely to stress out and not over-exert him/herself and can probably get by with paying him less. (Good news for you B students, eh?)

 

[Rumpltzer]

I got several (engineering) internships off of job fairs at UIUC, but that was four to six years ago. I went to the (four day) engineering expo this fall, and it was a complete waste of time.

The nature is just different now. A paper resume use to mean something. People would talk to you at a job fair and make notes on your resume. The resume would then get scanned or filed in a book for others to browse.

Now, the people who show up representing the companies may as well be boxes with slots in them and a card dispensers. All they do is take your resume and tell you to submit an electronic resume to the company Web site.

My advice (at least for engineers), is to not even bother going to the job fair. Skip it and submit resumes to the Web sites.

 

[Ameesh]

I got a majority of my jobs from career fairs on my college campus.

 

[zephyrprime]

Yeah, I've noticed that at a lot of job fairs, especially school ones, they just tell you to submit your resume online. So I guess they only come to the job fairs as a form of advertising for their company.

 

[wyvrn]

Interesting comments, I should have made a poll! Anyone else?