- Look professional. Whatever that means to you, do it to the fullest. If that means shaving your beard, removing facial piercing and/or covering tattoos, you get to decide. Clothing choices are up to you to, but if you want to play it safe, wear a clean suit. Whatever you decide about your appearance, just make sure that you actually think about it and don’t just default to, “I had no idea the recruiters would care about these things.” Many of them do.
- Be ready with a question (or two or three). Remember a job fair is when YOU approach different organizations, they don’t approach you. So they expect you to ask questions when you approach their booth. If you have not done your homework and look at their company website, (which you really should do), then have at least this one default question in your back pocket. “Can you tell me the most pressing business needs at your organization for someone with a __________ degree (fill in you major)?
- Paper shows purpose. In other words, don’t just talk to the recruiter. Engage in a little paper shuffling with them. You hand them your resume and you ask them for their business card. This exchange of paper demonstrates interest on your part. Demonstrated interest is an important factor at all job fairs. If you are REALLY interested in landing job at one a particular companies, follow up with an e-mail and/or letter to the recruiter that you met.
- Do some pre-work. A career fair can be overwhelming. You need to go in with a plan. Which five to seven companies will be your focus? What do you know about them? What can you learn about them in 5-10 minutes of Googling? We just added another question to our list of potential questions above. “What’s your perspective on the recent news that your company (fill in based on what you learned)?” Everyone wants to be wanted. If a company knows you are legitimately interested in them and know a bit about them, you’ll stand out from 99% of the “hand shakers” they’ll meet at a job fair.
- Follow up memorably. Make sure that when the company representative knows who you are when they get the follow-up e-mail from you. What did you tell the recruiter about yourself that he or she might remember? What did you discuss? Make sure that the recruiter can quickly identify you (hint: you need to utilize the ideas above to have a meaningful conversation to make this a possibility).