Advice for Your Next College Career Fair
Opinions are solely my own and not the views of my employer.
Last year around this time I spent a fair amount of time on the road for college career fairs. I bounced between universities like UPenn, Harvard, Rice, and Cambridge University, and visited tech centers like NYC, London, and San Francisco to interview candidates. Here are some thoughts on what I think you can do to get the most out of career fairs and your early conversations with companies!
Be Honest
I’ve spoken to many candidates who ask the questions they think I want to hear, which is unproductive for everyone.
As a recruiter my goal is to learn about you, discover where you might fit best at my company, and at the same time try to get you excited. While I’m doing this, you should be working to figure out whether or not my company is one you want to invest your time, energy, and possibly future in.
Saying “I don’t know about your company, what do you do?” doesn’t negatively reflect on you.
Conversations at career fairs are quick, so focus on getting your most pressing questions answered. If you don’t have any, or don’t know about the company, that’s ok! Saying “I don’t know about your company, what do you do?” doesn’t negatively reflect on you. It tells me as a recruiter that I need to cover more detail and background, which is what I’m there for.
If you do know about the company and something about it piques your interest, start with that up front. We can then have a focused conversation around what you’re looking to learn at your next role and I can start to get a sense of what motivates you. From there we can make sure the right people see your resume.
It’s obvious when candidates are approaching the job hunt as a “game”.
The incentives when you’re talking with a recruiter are all messed up. As a candidate I found myself incentivized to do whatever I could to get into the system, get an interview, come onsite, and get an offer (more offers means more negotiating power, which is probably a higher salary and better starting package). I get it, just know that I need to get a honest sense of you to help you find the right role and that it’s obvious when candidates are approaching the job hunt as a “game”. The latter feels really sleazy.
If you’re not excited by what I’m telling you at the career fair, let me know! Don’t feel bad about asking about other opportunities and don’t be too disappointed if there isn’t something that’s right. We’re both courting each other, learning about each other, and we’ve invested very little. Be open to the possibility that my company may not make sense for you. You can cut out early by handing me your resume, saying “I’m not sure that’s the right role for me. May I give you my resume anyways and learn more later?”, and making a graceful exit. No hard feelings.
Know Thyself
Originally I had this section called “Come Prepared”, but I actually don’t think that much planning and prep work needs to happen before you attend a career fair. Instead, I think the more you understand yourself, what motivates you, and what type of environment contributes the most to you succeeding and kicking ass, the more productive your conversations with recruiters will be. This doesn’t mean you need to know what you want next summer or for your first job, but get a head start on thinking about it.
Do some reflection and soul searching before the career fair.
What will motivate you and keep you energized about the work you do everyday? I think for some it’s working with a great group of people, for others it’s the outcome of their work and the impact it can have on their friends, families, communities, countries, and the world, or maybe it’s solving problems that have never been solved before. These are all grand; your answer doesn’t need to be.
For me, I wanted to work on products that had a positive global impact and be with people who aggressively work to make the world better, which helped me rule out finance and most companies supported by ad revenue. Thinking about these industries doesn’t excite me and I stayed away from companies in them. I was more interested in original creation, not explicitly supporting consumerism.
Start by reflecting on your previous experiences and projects and what made them exciting (or dull) to you.
I also knew from previous projects that I worked the hardest and my best when I was working side-by-side with other people rather than in isolation. This motivates me. Knowing this helped me ask questions about work environments and company demographics. So if you’re looking for a place to start on the question of “what will motivate you”, I’d start by reflecting on your previous experiences and projects and what made them exciting (or dull) to you.
As part of your reflection, and tied into “Be Honest” — please mind your buzzwords. I spoke with dozens of people last year who told me “I want to do big data”. It’s innocuous enough, it just doesn’t tell me anything. What does “big data”, or your other buzzword of choice, mean in practice? I asked a lot of potential candidates what about big data interested them or what it meant to them, and very few had thought deeply on it. It felt like I was calling someone out on a bluff. Think honestly about what experiences you’ve had that relate to the terms you’re using.
Outcomes First
The most promising candidates I spoke to were those who on their resumes listed the outcomes they’ve enabled or achieved, not just the things they’ve learned or done.
For example, the weakest is when I saw something on a resume that didn’t provide context:
Wrote scripts to automatically install the latest version of the product.
This tells me that there was activity, that time was spent doing something, but it fails to express why it happened. I think it’s important to always start by understanding the “why” of your work, and questioning whether or not you’re investing your time in something of real value. Demonstrate this on your resume.
A better example is when you discuss what your work made possible:
Developed a system that deploys the latest development version of our product to a production-like server, allowing developers, product managers, and others to interact with and test their work with real data.
This begins to tie the work back to the value it adds to coworkers and to the company. Employers in the interview process are evaluating what you will and can do to contribute to the company.
Relatedly, resumes that list skills with % next to them kill me. I’ve seen many a resume that will say “JavaScript — 80%, HTML — 75%” with fancy graphics or a series of filled and empty dots accompanying them. I don’t know what the units are! What does knowing 100% of something even mean!?
Logistics
I vote for attending the career fair in the morning. For those of us working the career fair, we’ll be there for several hours, possibly talking to hundreds of people each, and we get tired. By the end of the day I’m drained, I feel gross, I’ve been on my feet all day, and I haven’t eaten well. If you come in the morning you’ll get us when we’re freshest.
I’m sorry in advance if you have to wait to talk to us. I hate to see long lines form around our booth. I know you probably have other companies to visit and I want to do my best to serve you (after all, we want to make a good impression). We’re moving as quickly as we can, while learning about candidates, collecting resumes, and doing our best to answer questions.
Be independent at career fairs and travel solo. It’s hard to learn about someone when a group of friends approach the booth together. I get diminished “signal” because I can’t focus on you and I also can’t get super excited about your resume if I’m not also psyched about your friends. Come alone and give others space when they are talking to a recruiter.
Save the (nice) trees. The paper you use for your resume doesn’t matter at all. Save yourself the money and the hassle and use the most basic printer paper. We see too many resumes over the course of the day and during resume sorting for it to stand out. When we review resumes we don’t keep them afterwards (which is sad) and it isn’t necessary to go the extra mile here. Let the content of the resume do the talking (possible exception for design candidates).
I’m not a big believer in mission statements unless it’s says something meaningful. If all you’ve got is “obtain a summer internship”, it doesn’t tell us much. If you have more to offer, or can summarize yourself in 1–2 sentences, then definitely include it. My current mission statement is:
I’m seeking a position where I can apply my engineering, design, and leadership skills to develop products that define the future. I love designing and debugging complex systems, whether they are large scale computing, embedded, mechanical, or people based.
It’s meant to provide context on who I am, what I’m interested in, and why I’m applying.
Conclusion
In summary: be honest, think about what motivates you before attending the career fair, and focus on the outcomes you’ve enabled. You’re going to be great!
If you have any questions, reactions, or other thoughts I’d love to hear from you. Good luck this career fair season! I hope you find something that is a perfect match.