The Long Beach Career Fair has come and gone! My first real Career Fair, and a whole bundle of new experiences to report!
First, I arrived at the fair about an hour early. There was about 10 minutes of standing around awkwardly until people started to queue. I ended up in the first dozen or so hopefuls.
Lesson for next time: make sure to ask the person behind the desk (in case someone else doesn't) in which direction the line grows. If you are the first to try this it guarantees you a spot near the front of the line.
We all stood around awkwardly making conversation for the next forty minutes or so. Many clusters found themselves caught in an increasingly awkward, and occasionally inappropriate loops of conversation. For example, the cluster behind mine found itself caught in a discussion about guns, though only one of them had an gun-related knowledge. Another group found itself awkwardly discussing tattoos they found silly; though they ran out of tattoo related knowledge and anecdotes about 5 minutes into the 20 minute convo-loop.
Lesson for next time: prepare neutral, pleasant conversation topics to use to gently shift the conversation out of these loops.
And finally it was time to filter in. Those people who had registered online were allowed in first, and the drop ins were required to fill out the registration forms. Luckily I was one of those who were allowed in directly. But
a good thing to remember: Always register before you show up.
And then, gradually encroaching chaos. At first I had my pick of tables, being one of the first, and refusing to get caught at the first two very popular tables, I made a beeline for the opposite end of the room.
This actually ended up being one of the best decisions I could have made, but more about that later. As the applicants filtered in, the more disorderly everything got, and the more lines that snaked around the room.
I found myself stumbling through the first introduction. I must have said something along the lines of "My name is Beth Bailey and Business School management, what jobs?". I took a moment, composed myself, and tried again "Hello, My name is Elizabeth Bailey, I recently graduated from the School of Business Administration. As you can see from my resume, the majority of my experience is in program and project management. Does your company have any open positions that might be able to use these skills?" A daring save, and she seemed somewhat impressed that I was able to take my stumble in stride.
Lesson for next time: PRACTICE, practice, practice the introduction. Sure I went over it a few times, but just a few more times over, and I'm sure I could have avoided sounding like a dummy.
All in all I spoke with five companies that had positions I was interested in, and they all seemed genuinely interested in me.
Then, there were the flim flammers.
They were the displays closest to the doors; the ones that attracted everyone's attention at the beginning. Before attending the fair, I looked up the companies that would be there. I found two of them had poor reputations amongst members of the online community, and decided those would be the companies I would rank lowest priority.
I overheard 'recruiting agents' from one my two disreputables using the event as an opportunity to convince applicants to
purchase their product. With no intention of hiring any of these unemployed hopefuls, the scam artists strung them along, describing the benefits of their product, as the prospectives waited patiently for the position description.
There was no position.
Word to the Wise: In your research of the companies, make sure you check that every company is legitimate; feel free to use your own standards, but I ask myself: How does this company survive? If I can't answer it, I don't go for it. Or if the answer is "through completely unscrupulous means", I still avoid.
My final interaction for the day lead me to another method of job searching. I have dubbed it:
Method 7: Imaginary Jobs. I haven't merely been reacting to job postings and existing openings. I've also been proactively petitioning companies for positions I feel they ought to have available.
To this point I hadn't had much success in these endeavors. In fact, they were all either met with indifference or mild confusion.
Until today that is!
Waiting in line for a particular company, I heard the recruiter mention to every person who walked up to him he was only hiring for sales. The company was expanding its sales force, and that was that.
I don't want sales positions. They're towards the bottom of my desired positions. But I had already sat for twenty minutes; I was committed to talking with this guy. I was going to talk to him, and he was going to listen.
So, I decided it's time to harness the power of Method 7: Imaginary Job.
Confidence dial cranked up to 11, I marched up to him, shook his hand and told him "My name is Elizabeth Bailey, and I understand you are growing your sales force. I have personnel management experience that might be useful to coordinate your sales team".
To my surprise he agreed with me! It turned out I was speaking with the CEO of the company, and up until this point he had been coordinating the sales team by himself. He had neglected to consider what support he might need with the increased volume of sales as well as sales people. He handed me his card, wrote down his
correct phone number and asked me to call him tomorrow!
Strategy for next time: Don't be limited to the jobs they're offering, dream big and be creative (but keep it relevant to what you know they want/have)
And finally, lo and behold, I have an interview set up for Wednesday with yet another company! They're hiring for what sounds like an office management/training/personnel coordination position. The representative didn't sound completely familiar with the position, but I'm sure I'll learn more Wednesday! At the very least it'll be interview practice.
And finally, I wrote thank you and follow up emails. Every company in which I was interested I sent a thank you letter to the recruiter. A little detective work was necessary for one of the emails addresses, but I found it and look forward to hearing from all of the recruiters soon. I was proud of the fact that I received one message saying "I will be out of office October 18th for the job fair", I sent the email to her before she even had a chance to get back to the office from the fair!
All in all, Method 6 and Method 7 turned out to be highly successful, and I learned ways to make the most of
OC job fair October 27 from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Best regards and happy thoughts,
Beth
