I would love to hear from some people who have actually gotten a job as a result of attending a job fair. I don’t mean online, I mean the kind where you show up with a few dozen copies of your resume and are herded down lines of look-alike booths hosted by companies you’ve never heard of, collecting handouts and brochures in a plastic bag. I remember to going to one job fair in New York City just after I graduated from college. At the time, I thought it was a good opportunity to network with corporate executives, except I didn’t realize that the people who typically work job fairs are low-level human resources or recruitment staffers who are just looking to get through the day and add a hundred names to the old database.
Perhaps job fairs are good sources of company information, but today, couldn’t you just get that online, without having to waste time getting all dressed up and commuting out to some convention hall? And in terms of meeting people who work at the organization and are in a position to hire you, wouldn’t you be better off going to a relevant conference or setting up an informational interview? I look at attending a job fair the same way I look at posting your resume online and just sitting back and waiting for something to happen. You can tell yourself that you’re looking for a job by doing these things, but if you want to locate viable opportunities that will result in interviews at the very least, you’re going to have to get a whole lot MORE active. An active strategy includes researching specific companies that do the work you’re interesting in pursuing, and then using personal contacts or online channels to get yourself introduced to the right people in the organization.
Maybe I’m wrong in my perception of job fairs, and if I am, by all means write in and call me on it. Do job fairs at a physical location offer any real benefit? If you’re a candidate who has gotten lucky at one of these events, or if you’re an HR person doing something innovative in this space, please share your story!
If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here
Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS
There are job fairs and job fairs. A person I worked with went to a school sponsered one and it worked very well for him. He has been flown out to Microsoft and Lockheed for interviews and got a job waiting for him due to it.
On the otherhand, I went to a jobfair through some company that does job fairs around the company. It was a absolute joke. It was supposed to be big and for all levels. It had 10 lousy booths and for low level jobs only. There wasn't even one management job available, just telesales, customer service and retail jobs.
They can go either way...beware of any career fair that does't list the companies coming because it probably means its whoever they can scrape up.
Great insights, Kevin. So you think that job fairs can be successful if the right companies are there, and the right positions are "officially" open?
One of the most annoying parts of a job fair is when you're simply giving out your for hypothetical jobs. Also, I wanted to be proactive during the spring of my senior year, but HR people wouldn't even return my calls until after spring break because they wanted people who could start immediately. I don't hold job fairs in very high regard unless it's in a very specific niche, such as opportunities for women in the sciences or jobs at non-profit (even then, not so great).
Hi Susan, the hypothetical job thing gets on my nerves too. It's like they're collecting resumes just to collect resumes.
I have been to multiple types of Job Fairs, mostly through a University or one that is sponsored by a local company. I have had success only at the Job Fair put on by the University that I attended as I got my Master's. Now, it may be because it was as an MBA that I attended this fair, but from these two fairs I received multiple interviews and three offers. I had more success at the Job Fair than I had through posting online. BUT, there are several key factors that I have to disclose that may make my experience different from everyone else's:
- The University is major State-run institution in a small town of 120,000 people.
- I am currently employed by the Federal Government (a participant of the job fair), so the two fairs I attended were specific: one was a general job fair, while the other was a public service career job fair.
- The attendance of the job fair was limited to those currently attending the University, not the general public
- The town in which the University is located has a major engineering facility located nearby and is 3 hours south of a large city which houses many Federal Agencies
Maybe it was the fact that there were less numbers at these fairs, but I found the fairs to be extremely successful for me.