Tag Archives: Career Fair
Employers: Are You Ready?
Entry by Pat Patterson
Career fairs are fast-approaching – are you prepared to market your organization? Regardless of whether you are a large or small organization, career fairs are a great opportunity to recruit new talent:
“Think about all the money AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Ford Motor Company put into national advertising and promotional campaigns,” explains Keever-Watts, president of The Keever Group. “In the arena of college recruiting, however, any company can be a ‘big fish’ on campus.”
She points out that this is due to employers dealing in a much smaller, more confined market. In addition, Keever-Watts adds, the target audience—which is composed of students—is buying what the employer is selling.
“To make things even more favorable, it’s an employers’ market, which means that students are casting a wider net when it comes to finding a job,” she notes. “While the economic downturn hurts us …
Employers: Recruiting Your Interns
Entry by Pat Patterson
If you plan on hiring interns for the summer of 2011, plan to begin recruiting soon if you have not started already. As a general rule of thumb, employers should begin recruiting for an internship six months in advance of its start date to allow for a large candidate pool.
Collaborating with high schools, colleges, and universities, is one of the best, most common ways to recruit interns. Indiana high schools, colleges, and universities offer many opportunities for intern recruiting on campus. Employers may participate in career/internship fairs, conduct presentations, perform on-campus interviewing and/or get involved with various career services sponsored events. It may be best to target two to three schools in close proximity with academic programs that match your ideal criteria.
Employer Presentations
Presenting on campus is a convenient way for students to learn about your organization and its job openings – both …
Turkey Break: You Can Never Overcook Your Intership Search
Entry by Pat Patterson
Students and employers, Thanksgiving break is a great opportunity to prepare for upcoming career fairs. Although it may not sound like fun, researching and preparing for career fairs will help all you students land internships and all you employers find the perfect interns…not to mention, make you feel better after stuffing your face. After all, what else are you going to do for the six to eight hours that your turkey is cooking?
Students and employers, check out Indiana INTERNnet’s event page to view upcoming career fairs near you.
Students, check out past blog entries for career fair advice: Students: Preparing for a Career Fair, Career Fair Game Plan, Career Fairs 101: Create Customized Resumes, Career Fairs 101: Avoid the Herd Mentality, and Career Fairs 101: After the Career Fair.
Employers, check out our past blog entry: Career Fairs 101: Selling Your Company …
Career Fairs 101: Avoid the Herd Mentality
Entry by Pat Patterson
After attending a few career fairs this fall, it seems like a lot of students attend career fairs with a group of their friends. That in itself poses no problem, but showing up to a career fair with your friends and walking around the career fair with your friends are two different things. What I am getting at is – it is important to navigate your way through a career fair alone.
First off, think about the reasons that you may walk around a career fair in a group. The group acts as a ‘crutch.’ You may be nervous, unconfident, or unsure who to approach at a career fair, and your friends may make you feel more comfortable. And that is how employers may perceive such a group of students – recruiters may see such students as unconfident, unsure, or unprepared (not necessarily admirable traits for …
Career Fairs 101: After the Career Fair
Entry by Pat Patterson
Students
After a career fair (From the 2010 September INTERNnetwork):
Jot down your notes and organize the information you collected (including contact information – it is a good idea to note where you met certain individuals and what you talked about), write thank you notes to those you met, apply for positions you are interested in, and follow up with employers about applications you submitted.
Remember, making a positive impression with people greatly influences your internship and career search. When recruiters sift through resumes and decide who they plan to interview, you are more likely to stand out if the recruiters remember who you are and the interest you showed in their particular organization.
Employers
After the Career Fair (From the National Association of Colleges and Employers NACE)
Post-fair activities do help with your recruiting efforts. Here are some ideas:
Host a networking …
Career Fairs 101: Selling Your Company to Potential Interns
Entry by Pat Patterson
From the 2010 September INTERNnetwork:
Now that you have established a need for interns in your organization, you need to make sure you have students that are interested in your internship opportunities. And although having too many interested candidates may not be a bad thing, it is important that the candidates you attract are qualified for your positions and are the right fit for your organization.
Conveying a clear, concise message about your organization and its mission is vital in attracting the type of talent you would like to fill your internships. Here are some tips on how to sell your company to interns, specifically at career fairs:
Have a section of your website dedicated to your internship opportunities, including detailed descriptions, which you can direct interns to visit (the link can be included on any literature students are provided before the career fair), attend those …
Career Fair Game Plan
Entry by Pat Patterson
Last Friday I posted an entry about how to prepare for a career fair. You also need to lay out a game plan of the organizations you will visit and the order in which you will visit them. I would recommend visiting those organizations you are less interested in first to build up your confidence when you speak with those recruiters from organizations you are more excited about.
Here is some advice to help guide you during the career fair:
DURING a career fair:
Arrive early, dress professionally, have your resume, portfolio, and a pen ready, proceed to the organizations that you identified you are interested in, be aware of your posture and body language, relax, be confident, be approachable – SMILE, offer a firm, confident handshake to recruiters with eye contact, execute your *elevator speech, ask any questions you prepared, and make sure to collect …
Students: Preparing for a Career Fair
Entry by Pat Patterson
Fall career fairs are beginning to take place as early as next week, and recruiters look positively on candidates who show up to career fairs prepared. But what does that mean exactly? Here is some advice to help guide you:
BEFORE a career fair you should prepare by:
Keeping up on industry/market trends, keeping up on current events in your areas of interest, pre-registering for the career fair, researching the participating employers and their opportunities,
– General company information: industry, market outlook, products and services, history and corporate culture, organizational mission and goals, key financial statistics, organizational structure (divisions, subsidiaries, etc.), and locations (main and branch).
– Employment: career paths and advancement opportunities, benefits, diversity initiatives, current internship and job opportunities. identifying the employers you plan on speaking with and the positions you plan on applying for, preparing resume(s) (creating specific, tailored resumes for different …
Students: Pay Attention to the Details
Entry by Pat Patterson
Just because you may not have landed the internship of your dreams in the past does not mean it’s not possible. Writing a great resume and cover letter and “looking the part” at a networking event or career fair are not the only determinants of whether or not you will get a call back. It is important to also pay attention to the details that may set you apart from other candidates.
Spell check your resume and cover letter over and over again. And then after you are done spell checking, have one of your peers spell check for you. A typo can say a lot of negative things about you – such as, you may not be able to spell, you don’t care enough to check for spelling errors, you are not organized or detail-oriented, etc.
Invest in professional resume paper. Although business stationary paper …
How Will You Be Remembered?
Entry by Pat Patterson
Regardless if you are at a networking event or a friend’s cookout, you are likely to meet new people, perhaps someone who will lead you to your next internship or job. Whether you will continue to keep in touch with new contacts depends on how favorably they remember you.
A great first impression will increase your chances of continuing a relationship with someone you meet. Especially for those internship and job seekers at career fairs, making a great first impression may determine whether or not a recruiter decides to toss your resume aside or keep it in the pile of potential candidates.
In Kevin Eikenberry’s blog, Leadership and Learning, he provides ten valuable tips on how to make a great first impression:
Relax. This comes first, especially if the situation is one where you feel you need to make a great first impression. You want the new …
Employers: Creating an Internship Description
Entry by Pat Patterson
Now that career fairs are approaching, it is important to have clear, detailed descriptions of the internship opportunities that you have to offer. Your internship description should include a brief overview of your organization, the intern responsibilities/duties, desired candidate skills, and any additional logistical details.
The following is an example of an internship description:
Marketing/Communications Intern*
Indiana INTERNnet is a business-education partnership between the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Indiana higher education institutions and high schools, and Indiana-based employers to promote the quality and quantity of internship opportunities statewide. Indiana INTERNnet serves as the state’s online matching system connecting students and employers for internship opportunities. For more information about Indiana INTERNnet, visit www.workandlearnindiana.com.
Indiana INTERNnet is currently offering one paid internship opportunity to assist current staff members with internship activities.
Intern Responsibilities:
• Follow up with employers who have posted internships in the past to collect internship metrics and …