I have a career fair coming up and I’ve never been before. I know that I’m supposed to dress professionally, talk to all the recruiters and hand them my resume, but is there anything else I should look out for or any tips you all have?
I just don’t want to end up going in there and doing something wrong or miss the opportunity to do something that would resonate well with the recruiters.
If there are any companies that interest you, make sure you do a bit of reading about them ahead of time. Walking up to a booth and saying “so what do you guys do?” is generally not a good idea.
Talk to some upperclassman at your school. They may have some tips.
Drop by tables for various companies, even if they seem at first not interesting to you. You may learn more. Plus it gives chance to get accustomed to talking with recruiters.
Look up what companies are going to be there. As boneh3ad says, do your research and know what the company does. Prioritize which ones interest you the most as you may not have an opportunity to talk to all that potentially could interest you.
The most success I have ever had was using the following line: “Hi, my name is _____, and I was interested in your (summer internship program/ full-time jobs / co-ops / whatever).” Very few people will want to tell you this (and I’m not sure why), but a direct approach works best, simply because at the end of the day, as long as you made a decent first impression, the only thing that matters is that they look at your resume. If they don’t like you they will throw it out without consideration, but besides that it’s all resume.
Research the companies slightly so that you know who to talk to, but don’t go overboard, and don’t just randomly drop knowledge about the company because it does you no favors to look like a suck-up. Asking, “what jobs do you have for ______ engineers?” is also a useful technique. Not a one-size-fits-all formula, but neither is job searching.
Also, it gets easier with practice. Start early because it’s much easier the second and third times than the first.