As the job market becomes a bit more competitive, the opportunity to participate in job fairs ”“ open houses of sorts pairing multiple employers with a pool of job seekers ”“ becomes more enticing. For those seeking raw talent in a comparable setting, the college career fair offers the same potential: a sizable selection of soon-to-be graduates in one location for a short window of time. When handled correctly it is the optimal chance to kill many birds with one stone. With that said, many firms that participate in events of this nature poorly execute the fundamentals of what makes these opportunities successful.
For starters many participating businesses do not understand what to expect during these fairs. They treat the fairs as if the experience in interviews will be the same as a typical interview, anticipating that they will have quality time with each candidate so that they can properly assess them for a role within their firm. Instead, they are usually greeted with more candidates than they likely can talk to in the time allotted, with long lines of eager job seekers.
The approach at these speed-dating sessions of sorts is to size up each candidate on appearance, presentation, communication, clarity of message, résumé and overall initial match for your role. You need to plan for a set routine that has you asking them a few questions, establishing up front that because of the volume of people you have to see that day that they need to keep their responses to 30 seconds. Laying it out up front will help limit those you see being annoyed by the shortness of the encounter, while also helping you process as many candidates as possible.
Equally important is how you document these “quality” four-minute conversations in a way that allows you to know days later who is worth bringing back in for a more formal interview via your notes vs. your memory of any conversation. The easiest method is to have a pile for those you feel just do not at all resemble a fit for your firm. Thereafter, move on to some established coding system or methodology for the rest, setting structure around what you are going to write down about each possible hire. This will allow you to better manage the results of your meetings after you get back to the office and pore over a pile of resumes that suddenly seem foreign and unfamiliar.
Lastly, you want to be able to sell your firm and its attributes, especially when participating in college career fairs where the students are often the buyers and you are the seller. The true pros at this have materials that talk about where the recruits from three years ago are now, showing the growth potential for this new candidate class. There also is an abundance of material about culture, company history, products, clients, etc. You must be prepared to compete and to sell.
These events can be exhausting and intense. They can also be frustrating and worthless without a plan and a strategy. Taking the time to invest in both will make job and career fairs a means to develop a solid candidate pipeline in relatively quick time.
David Lewis is president/CEO of WestchesterCountyJobs.com, a regional job board with more than 100,000 area visitors a month viewing jobs from more than 4,000 area employers. He can be reached at dlewis@operationsinc.com.
