

Career Fairs: May I Have a Mug, Sir? - ggualberto
http://www.atalasoft.com/cs/blogs/office/archive/2011/02/10/career-fairs-may-i-have-a-mug-sir.aspx

======
artmageddon
In my experience, recruiters who set up at career fairs tend to do it wrong
sometimes, too. I haven't been to a career fair since I graduated university
in 2004, but there are reasons I stopped going to them.

1\. _Show Up_. This is self-explanatory, right? On a number of occasions, a
company would set up a table with a poster or two alongside a locked bin for
people to drop their resumes in. I don't mind if a one-person booth steps out
for a little bit for a snack or to use the restroom, but I've seen more than
several booths totally unmanned during an entire fair. It puts a bad image on
your company that you can't even bother to send an individual or two to
represent your interests.

2\. _If you don't have positions open, don't show up._ This might contradict
point #1, but almost worse yet were people who were just there to collect
resumes even though they didn't have jobs open at their company. It's just as
stimulating as getting an email saying "We'll keep your resume on file." If
you're not hiring, why am I talking to you?

3\. _On demanding absolute GPA minimums._ I get that each company wants to
hire the best and the brightest especially when hosting booths at university
fairs, but honestly those who are expecting a certain GPA without giving any
consideration to experience or what the candidate demonstrates in knowledge..
well, it makes you look like asses. I recall(read: I was bitter for a little
while about) talking to a recruiter from a well respected financial company
looking for developers. The first thing he asked me was my GPA, and after
telling him it was about .08 points under their minimum cut-off, he simply
handed my resume back and refused to talk to me. Joke's on them since I got
hired at a larger one a little while after I graduated about a year later...

4\. _If you're a big company, send multiple people_. Our time is just as
valuable as yours, and I don't want to wait for 30 other people to each get
done shooting their 4-minute breeze with you as the only person at your table.
Having multiple people to talk to candidates helps everyone feel like the line
is moving, and distracts me from having to mentally figure out how many other
companies I could've talked to while I waited in your line. I understand it's
not always possible since career fairs are pretty low on a company's day-to-
day priority list, but nevertheless it should be taken into consideration.

5\. _Go beyond brochures_ I'm a literate person and I've probably already
combed through your website. Talk to me about what you do, and what your
experience with your company has been like. Smiling and handing me a brochure
and hoping that I'll walk away isn't going to leave me with a memorable
impression.

6\. _Free swag rules_ This isn't actually a bone to pick.. but having unique
swag to give out is good PR. If you don't have anything it's perfectly fine,
too. But people like free stuff :)

~~~
kd0amg
From my experience here, I would add:

7\. _Don't just direct everyone to your web site._ This ties in to some extent
with #2. If you're not meeting the students, setting up interviews, holding
info sessions, etc., then your physical presence is superfluous and distorts
students' expectations of career fair.

8\. _Don't say you're looking for students from all majors._ You won't get
taken seriously. Maybe your company really does have openings in every field
this school offers, but USPTO is the only employer I've seen who can even come
close to justifying this claim.

It's also worth noting that students (here, at least) talk to each other about
the recruiters they've encountered. Students remember really good recruiters
and those who make serious faux pas.

~~~
jrockway
_Don't say you're looking for students from all majors_

Why not? If you're smart and are interested in programming, it's quite
possible that I am willing to "take a chance" on you. It doesn't really matter
if you studied data structures or English literature; CS majors have as much
experience writing real software as English majors do.

~~~
bartonfink
If you're really worried about students from "all majors" being unqualified,
then it seems to me that the answer is requesting a small coding project ala
FizzBuzz to seperate the wheat and the chaff. Those who can, do - those who
can't... do something else.

------
ben1040
_Hi, my name is Milford Pickles. I am a PhD candidate writing my thesis on
blahblahblahblah...._

I've seen this, and I've seen it taken a step further where they walked down
every point of experience on their resume telling me why they thought that
particular course in school or work stint would make them be a good fit at my
organization.

I much rather that the introduction is kept to, "I'm Bob, I'm a graduating
computer science major and I'm interested in blahblah, what do you guys do?"
because that turns into a mutually beneficial back-and-forth conversation very
quickly.

I do wonder if this is a cultural thing, though, and just an honest go at
expressing interest in the position. When I was recruiting at career fairs,
the only people I noticed doing this were graduate students from India who had
spent only a short time in the US. And typically the people with the extremely
expressive introduction came otherwise heavily prepared, with a resume and
cover letter hand-tailored to job postings on our website.

I can't fault anyone for preparation, however, given so many people come
totally unprepared -- "man, you're the tenth person today to ask for a copy of
my resume, nobody told me I should've brought any!"

~~~
schintan
_If you’re not sure, err on the side of caution_

Maybe that is what they are trying to do

------
larrik
"Please do not fart by our table and then walk away. I beg you."

So you should fart and then NOT walk away? Clearly, you should stick around
because... we will want to hire you? I mean, what's the alternative here?

~~~
xteemarie
Use the bathroom. Hold it in.

------
Groxx
I've had no end of success by simply slapping a name sticker over my coat,
wearing my side-backpack/laptop-bag, both of which because I usually have
limited time before class, and simply having fun.

Booth-sitters are usually bored, know less about the details of the job you
might get than the people you'd be working with (they're often HR), and have
dealt with many kids wearing suits and sounding important. But they _are_
there to be the first line of defense. So be yourself, someone they could work
with and maybe even like, rather than someone who sounds like everyone is
trying to sound like!

And bring a resume. One page. If you can't sell yourself in _half_ that, they
won't read the rest, so make your point and make it fast.

~~~
iuygtfrikuj
Any booth that doesn't have real workers on ignore. There is no point in
talking to MSFT HR drones at a MSFT stand - what have learned that you
couldn't get from the application web page.

ps. It is worth looking for companies you have never heard of. While there is
no point in listening to a speech from a MSFT HR drone - the small company
that have their CTO on the stand who are making a cool technology might be
worth your time.

~~~
Groxx
You may hear of un-published openings (almost every single instance, in my
experience - they save some for the fairs), _and you've gone past the initial
HR barrier_ if you sell yourself well as a _person_. Bypassing hoops you have
to jump through helps immensely.

~~~
iuygtfrikuj
Depends on the company - pretty much any outfit large enough to have a
professional booth with HR drones is going to be by-the-book.

Another problem if you are anywhere nice is that the HR dept treat this as a
holiday, so you are getting a bunch of people who are in your town to drink,
stay in a nice hotel and 'bond'. Having to talk to a few smelly students isn't
the highlight of the trip.

~~~
Groxx
True, but this one is about an on-campus / campus-organized fair:

> _Atalasoft exhibited at the UMass Campus Center Career Blast Fair (say that
> 3x fast) yesterday, and holy smokes, do you want jobs._

Those are frequently far less "nice", and being smelly won't work anywhere.
And even smaller businesses still send HR-oriented people more frequently than
people they're paying to produce the core of what they sell.

------
daimyoyo
"There are jobs for you out there, I promise."

I agree completely. After all, lattes don't make themselves, now do they?

------
kevinburke
Maybe it's just me, but I haven't had a good experience with career fairs -
too many people and it's difficult to stand out. I prefer reaching out to
someone in the company, in our school's alumni network or asking for a mutual
introduction. Hacker News has also been a good source of leads.

------
tastybites
_Overall, everyone we met yesterday was friendly, polite, and did all the
right things._

... this entire blog post was about how people were doing the wrong things.

~~~
xteemarie
The post is about the rare instances-- the turn-offs. Perhaps I should say
"almost everyone."

