Career Fair: view from behind the booth and how to land an interview

Career Fairs: backpacks, jeans, seated grumpy recruiters

Career Fair: the odds show you are blowing it

For most companies with a booth at a career fair, it doesn’t matter if they see 100 or 500 candidates. They are happy to get 1, maybe two hires out of a day on the road. In the next two posts, I explain why the numbers are low. You will hear how to get Nasty with the system and walk away with the interview.

Every year, I visit 8-10 prominent colleges just before graduation. A arrive armed with attractive recruiters and a portable conference booth. At the end of the week, we were happy to get, on average, one hire per day. Didn’t matter if it was a school with 25K students or a small private college.

The numbers are staggering

Downright depressing. You are wondering if you should stand in the long lines and bother. I am here to tell you why you SHOULD bother. The numbers lie. The numbers are low because most candidates who attend a career fair treat it like a car/wedding/home show. As an insider looking out, the job fair is one of the easiest places to land an interview. Why? Because you have the opportunity to talk directly with the recruiter.

When I think of a car show, I think of young people with baseball caps on backward and fashionable sneakers. Folks from all demographics dressed as if they were ready to walk around all day. I get that. When I think of a wedding or home show (I haven’t been to one, so stay with me), I think of folks carrying too much stuff. A sponsored plastic bag will be used to collect all their free booth swag. The shit is sticking out of their bag. The bags are bulging and overflowing. They are carrying their jackets along with a purse or backpack. Carrying this much stuff makes you look disheveled. It’s not a great first impression, but it’s perfectly acceptable at a home show. Now add a binder to carry your resume and loose papers.

Career fairs are NOT car shows.  Repeat after me:  

“CAREER FAIRS ARE NOT CAR / WEDDING / HOME SHOWS.  CAREER FAIRS ARE INTERVIEWS.”   

They are not go-sees or information-gathering events. They are interviews. The people behind these booths are recruiters and hiring managers. At a car show, the car manufacturer sells the product to you. Anyone can walk to the booth and buy the car or the white wedding dress. At a job fair, the company is buying you. They are the ones who are forking over the money in the form of a salary. You are the dog and the pony show. The company usually only has ONE job in any particular department.  Uno, Single, One. You do not get to pick from the lineup of all the companies and say, “OK, you get to hire me”. There is no second place. The company is picking you. There are many “you’s” in this room.

Tell me what we do

You can walk around a car show/home show/wedding show and visit every booth, collecting free logo’d shit. No one will know the difference. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE free shit. You are not expected to do any research for any of these vendors. Your goal is to bring back literature that tells you about the product. We dump it on your dining room table and drool over it like a kid on October 31. You go to each booth expecting them to feed you the product information and give you free stuff. As much as I do it, I do not want to explain what Acme Publishing does to any college graduate. I want the college grad to explain it to ME!

Typical day at a career fair

The event is being held in a large auditorium of some sort. There are 100 companies present, maybe more. If this is a college affair, students from neighboring schools will be in attendance.  Yes, they snuck in and they are potentially taking your job. It’s a great tactic and always shows the recruiter’s initiative. Trust me, if they snuck in or drove from a neighboring city, they did their homework. They didn’t drive a few hours to “Find out who is here.” They know what companies are here. These candidates mean business. If I am talking to a great candidate, short of coming from prison, what do I care where they come from?

What you see from the front of the booth is like any other wedding show, car show, or convention you have attended. Every company is trying to hawk its wares. Some are spending a lot of money on sponsorships and booth space. There is flashy standing signage and big screen TVs looping good-looking employees happy in the workplace. No booth is complete without the obligatory logo’ed swag. Key chains, squishy toys.  My favorites are tins of tiny mints and the Purell dispensers. Do not let this scene fool you. You are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy!

The competition

The folks behind the booths are usually young, attractive, and have great smiles. They are the ones that can stand all day long and keep folks engaged.  (Think booth babes or cheerleaders) To most candidates, these folks look like they have the best job in the world. Other companies will show up with just a tablecloth and some marketing materials. No job fair would be complete without the bitter, old HR person who sits down behind the booth and just looks up at the hopeful candidates.  These guys don’t get out of their chairs except for lunch.  Very depressing.

Career Fairs – what you don’t see behind the scenes

Underneath that tablecloth-draped table are two cardboard boxes. If you are lucky, there are three. One is a “round file,” aka recycling bin, the second is labeled “maybe,” and the third is a box that says “call tomorrow.” You guessed it. You talk with the recruiter and hand them your resume. Your paper is tossed into one of the marked boxes. If you made the right impression, the recruiter will be writing a ton of notes. They will write, “CALL TOMORROW” at the top.

I have been to recruiting fairs where there were 2000 candidates in attendance. Others will only have 50 candidates in attendance. No matter how many candidates attend, the same thing happens EVERY time. 98% of the candidates come up to the booth and fall into one, if not two, of two buckets: 1. Didn’t research any company present and don’t have a pitch. 2. Hoping that just dropping off a resume is enough to get them a job. These tactics boggle my mind. These candidates are not considered candidates. They should have just stayed in bed.

The Breakdown

• 95% of the candidates come to the booth without knowing what the company does or who they are.  They walk from one booth to the next and open with, “Tell me what you guys do,” or “What positions are you hiring?”
• 90% of candidates are dressed like they are going to a home/car/wedding show.
• 85% of the candidates will hand me the resume and expect me to read it right there and pitch them questions. They will stand there silently, waiting for me to say something.  MAKE A MOVE SON!
• 60% of candidates don’t have the initiative to attend the booth. They hang out on the “outskirts” of our booth space, hoping we will notice them. They are either scared or shy, or they don’t know what this looks like from our POV. These candidates don’t stand a chance if we have the hot swag of the show and our booth is crowded. These sheep are not getting through the line for the Frisbees we give away at a college campus. We make it a point to stand in front of the booth to connect with the sheep. (we NEED accountants, statisticians, developers and other professionals who may lack the outgoing gene)
• 33% don’t have a resume. They are here to “check out companies.” These candidates think I will be on the lookout for their online application or remember them from the other 2000 people I see when I check my email next week.  Oy Vey!

College Campus Behavior:

If we are on a college campus, 95% of the candidates look like they just got out of class. They are NOT there to make an impression. Bulging backpacks overstuffed with books and water bottles. Torn jeans and hoodie sweatshirts with school logos. Would you show up to an interview like this????? You just did biatch!

We can be talking to a candidate, and one of their buddies runs up to them, jumps on them, and shouts, “Dude! What’s uppppp?!! Did you see Kristen, she is looking HOTTTTTT!  Oh, you talking with them, sorry, my bad. . . what kind of jobs you got?“

The company goal

When recruiters go to a career fair at a college, they usually try to do two things, but they are not necessarily in this order. They may not even have a position:

• Get their company name out there
• Fill positions

They are thinking about two things:

• All the email and work that is piling up while they are out of the office
• Wondering if this event is providing them with a free lunch

I realize the last two bullets sound depressing, but when you know what you are up against, you can plan for it.  Florida and ASU can be a great break for a college recruiter, but I can sift through 100 resumes an hour only from the comfort of my desk. I don’t have to explain what we do or who we are 95 times. Do you recognize a pattern?

If I talk to 100 or 500 candidates at a career fair, there is always one person who comes to a fair prepped and does everything right. This candidate walks away with an interview.

To get the lowdown on how that person gets the interview at a career fair, read the next entry here.   

See you at the after party,

HRNasty

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