hello all,

a lot of schools have career fairs, when they invite companies to come and "recruit" at the school to possible bring on new college grads or pick up interns, etc.

i was wondering how many of the people out there have actually benefited from a career fair. i hate attended my share, and have not received a phone call or interview from one. i received my interviews through an application process that is avaliable to students at my school (erecruiting) and also through emails sent out from advisors.

please chime in. thanks!

mike

 

I never went to those because my majors are a little out there for them (acting major in undergrad w/ a second in marketing, advertising in grad school). Obviously they haven't been much help to me.

BUT, my current roommate who's a friend from high school got a couple of offers through his career fairs. Ended up working at Dell every other semester during school (switched off between work and classes). When he graduated, he turned down an offer with IBM to continue with Dell. He's an Elec. Engineer.

I think it all depends on what you're studying, etc.

 

Well, I believe career fairs can be beneficial to specific fields of study, especially engineering and physical sciences, as well as finance. I just graduated with a BSEE and I did find the fairs to be somewhat helpful.

Due to the fairs, I received two interviews, which is a good thing. I personally believe, however, that trying to score a position through a career fair is quite difficult. Everyone tries to impress the recruiters with their two minute spiel (sp?), but at the end of the day it seems like the recruiters give the jobs to the top students. I don't blame them for doing that, but unless you have an excellent resume (high gpa or tons of experience) , it is hard to get your foot into the door.

Personally, I believe networking is by far more helpful in terms of getting a job. Most of the jobs out there you definitely will have a leg up if you already know someone working for the corporation.

 

I know many people who have gotten jobs after graduation by attending career fairs. If anything, you'll come away with contact information or even a person that you can follow up with.

 

I participate in recruiting events for my company and would have to say that you've really got to do the research on the company to get the most out of the job fair.

Students that make the best impression for me are those that ask intelligent questions or appear genuinely interested in the prospects of a job. Likewise, they should also know the minimum requirements for the position.

If there are alumi participating in the fair, ask them the "off-record" questions. They're also one of the first groups of people to network.

 

Yeh I just got my MBA pretty young to Attending one next week, FBI will be there among others

 

how old? I have another year left :-(

 

i used to work at a management consulting firm back in the day and took part in my share of career fairs. the firm was well know and received a lot of traffic and when we collected resumes, we had 3 piles, one for the definitely call back's, one for the maybe's and one for the hell no's.

most of the definitely call back's impressed us because they properly attired, knew about the company and industry, asked intelligent questions, acted interested and had a solid resume. at MBA career fairs, we actually interviewed promising candidates same-day.

for the motivated and well prepared candidate, career fairs are well worth the effort.

 

I try to steer clear of HR stuff but I had to do a career fair at my alma mater. It was quite interesting how the "maybe" pile of resumes was quite small. 2 minutes talking to a candidate was all we needed to tell if the guy/girl was "ready".

I work for Fortune 10 company and we look for type-A, flag-carrier seniors/grads.
That fair got me 2 top notch engineering interns, one of who has just been accepted into prestigious post-grad design program. He just blew his signing bonus on a fat down payment for a Boxter .

My advice...give the career fairs all you got. Find out what companies will be at the fair,research the ones you are interested in and target them. Strike up a conversation about the latest new product from the company.
Ambition is twice as valuable as grades.

 

I went to apply to attend a college, stmbled on a career fair, got hired the next week. Never ended up going to college =)