Career Fair Planning
It's Career Fair time! Career fairs are amazing for networking in high school, but they're even more amazing in college because you may actually get a job from meeting with different companies. Most people assume that the work you do for a career fair happens after you attend, but they couldn't be more wrong. There are 3 things that you can do before a career fair that can help turn simple meetings into possible job opportunities.
1. Research
If you are planning to go to a career fair offered by your school then you will have access to the list of vendors that will be at the fair beforehand. Go through this list and pick out a few companies that interest you and do some research about them. Knowing about their company beforehand will let them know that you have interest in their company and will be more willing to offer you a form of position of get you into contact with someone who can. A little research can also help you decide if this is a company you could actually see yourself working for.
2. Update/Clean Up Your Resume
Over time our resumes become outdated as we forget to consistently add to them, or they become cluttered by adding too much. Take some time going through your resume and clean it up; take out any extraneous additions that may not be relevant anymore. Your resume shouldn't exceed one page in length, for the main reason that most recruiters don't want to flip through multiple pages in order to see what you've done.
If you don't have a resume consider using an online resume builder. If you use Apple's "Pages" software then you can find several different templates for building your own resume.
Once you create/update your resume make sure you print out enough copies to hand out to recruiters, preferably on resume paper.
3. Consider Getting Business Cards
No matter how old you are or how much you've done having a simple business card is extremely beneficial. Career fairs can be hectic, so being able to quickly pass along your contact information is vital.
Moo.com is an amazing site for business cards, (plus they're budget friendly!)
Go get prepping!
Next week I'll be giving some more advice on career fairs and how I got through mine.
xoxo
AME
