Going to a career fair and bringing your ordinary resume with your strong points and work experiences might sound simple enough. After all, the career expo resume should contain the same points as a typical resume that you carry to an interview. However, when you enter the career fair, you'll need to think on a higher level in terms of strategy.
First and foremost, the best job fair advice is to bring enough resumes to hand out to companies you are interested in. I cannot emphasize this point more, even though it may come across as common sense, you would be surprised at how many people show up at career fairs empty handed. The number of resumes you bring will ultimately depend on which companies you want to apply to. Take a look at the career fair website in advance and see which companies you want to meet. If no information is available, bring about 25 resumes for a mid size job fair to 40 resumes for a larger job fair.
Additionally, your resume needs to be "scannable" at a job fair. Given that many job-hunters will be attending, the guys at the stands will not have time to thoroughly read every little resume detail on the spot. Prospective employers must be able to quickly scan your resume and see that you are worth talking to or worth interviewing. People will be queuing up to talk to representatives, so the employers will not have time to read resumes that are longer than two pages.
Even more importantly is to tailor your career fair resume to specific companies. From experience, job fairs publish company names prior to the event. Be sure to do your due diligence in seeing which companies you want to meet and in what order. JobConcierge.com has one of the best career fair and networking events list on the Internet and we recommend the page as a starting point. JobConcierge covers more than 300 job fairs and networking events across the United States. After your diligence, tailor your resume to the individual company. Applying for marketing companies? Then emphasize previous marketing skills, no matter how long ago. Consulting? Then add bullets on your consulting experience to your job fair resume.
Another job fair strategy is to always be sure to carry generic job fair resumes. After you're finished covering the grounds at your preferred choice companies, then you can move on to second choice and third choice companies and hand your generic resume or simply drop them at the company booths.
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