Job seeking from a hunters perspective Blog

Career Fairs Great opportunities October 1, 2010

We all know how Career fairs are run today.

Most of them have some flunky standing behind a table collecting resumes. Others have an low level HR person collecting them who can not tell you much about the company they work for or the position.

While others have hiring managers working the table but why is it they are not the ones that will be hiring you. Such is the realm of career fairs.

Oh one last pet peeve the fairs I have been to lately are great if you want to sell insurance, be a financial advisor, or sell Avon.

So with all this negativism why should go to a job fair?

Because it is a place of opportunity if you know how to work the floor!

The floor???? What are you talking about?

The most important people at the show in my opinion are the job seekers. Yes the job seekers!

These are people who have worked at companies that you may be interested in. These are people who may know someone that works at a company that you are interested in.

These are the people you should be talking to.

I started doing this awhile ago and it works great for a number of reasons.

One it builds your network and it gives you the opportunity to maybe help someone.

You may get the inside skinny on a company that you are interviewing with.

It gives you something to do instead of just standing in line looking at your feet.

It makes the time to get to the table to dump your resume go faster.

If there is by chance a hiring manager at the table you are more open to talking and asking the right questions because you just spent all that time talking to a bunch of strangers.

It makes the fair much more enjoyable.

So how do you do this?

While standing in line turn to the person behind you and say something like what do you do? My favorite ice breaker is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It usually gets a smile, a chuckle or a laugh but it breaks the barrier immediately.

So after a couple of minutes say excuse me and tap the person in front of you and get them engaged. Then the person behind the person behind you. Then the person in front of the person in front of you. You should know have a 5 person network meeting running.

Oh but you are not done because there are more people in the lines on either side of you so get them engaged in the network meeting also.

As the lines move and people drop out engage more people to keep your mini-networking meeting going.

I have found out some interesting information while conducting these meetings.  While at a Monster.com fair I had a woman who works for Monster come up and give me kudos for starting it.

So do not look at Career Fairs as boring and not worth the trip or effort go have fun and start your own networking event on the floor. Be sure to bring plenty of business cards and practice your pitch.