By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
In this video, Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains why he is not a big fan of job fairs. However, if you want to go to one, he offers some tips about what you should do.
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Hi! I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I’m referred to as The Big Game Hunter because I’ve been hunting down leaders and staff for organizations for more than 40 years now. Today’s video is about job fairs and I want to start with this premise.
I’m not a big fan of them. I don’t think you should be, too. But I’m going to give you some advice where if you feel like you want to go to a job fair, you have a shot.
You have a shot of making an impression. So, let me just get out of the way my reasons for not being a fan of job fairs. The obvious one is neither party wants to be there.
You don’t want to be going to what you may think of as a cattle call and the HR people who are stuck and the hiring managers who are stuck being there are going to be bombarded by thousands of people all day long who are trying to create an impression with them and yes, ostensibly, they are there to hire but they’re not doing any hiring there. What they’re really doing is collecting resumes. Now, that’s the overt problem with them.
Here’s the covert problem that you don’t know. Once a resume is handed to an employer, in the future, years later, you may be blocked out of having a third party recruiter submit your resume to that employer. Let me give you an example and this shows up pretty regularly.
Someone goes to a job fair. It’s 2013. They handed in a resume.
It’s parsed and input into the firm’s applicant tracking system. Two years later, you decide you want to look for a job. You contact three recruiters.
One of them tries to submit you to that employer. The employer basically responds by saying he’s already in our system, basically freezing the recruiter from making the referral but way often what happens is the firm is too busy to ever turn around and try to contact you. All that’s happened is they don’t want to pay the agency the referral fee and you’re locked out of applying having that agent submit you to that firm for a job that they believe you’re qualified for and then the hr person who’s busy interviewing other people reading their resumes interviewing hiring managers getting debriefs talking to people like me and a whole bunch more stuff is too busy to reach back to you to see if you’re actually qualified and if they do they’re working off of two-year-old information they’re not working off the current stuff so that’s why i’m not a big fan of them now if you feel compelled to go with that said here’s a couple of things you should do number one dress like a star i’m not saying wear a party dress and a tuxedo you know what i’m talking about you dress you know casually professionally you know it’s a it’s a good business casual outfit you carry resumes with you you have an idea of who’s going to be there what firms are attending and you know what you want to do is see if you can find that in advance the kind of jobs they’re going to be screening for because, after all, you may want to talk to a particular employer but the wrong team is there from them and there’s no one there to really evaluate what you do so you might try and contact the the firm that’s putting on the fair see what firms are there see if you can get a directory of the firms in attendance and by calling the promoter find out what those firms are screening for while they’re in attendance now if they try and tell you they’re open to all kinds of positions well it’s hit or miss quite obviously number the next thing is i forget the number at this point be prepared to give a very basic commercial about what you do and if you’re in it the technology used if you’re in another specialized field the core elements of what makes you you know who you are professionally ask them the kind of positions they’re trying to fill now you may find that if you start by asking the questions they’re there to fill you can save yourself a lot of breath and just simply say this is my background do you know if your firm has a need for someone like that you know i could give you a resume but you know it’s just going to get caught up in the mass with all the others is there someone else i should submit it to and mention that we had spoken that’s probably the best approach finally you know some people tell you to follow up in 24 hours let’s assume that you’re not meeting with the c team from hr you know the real junior ones who are they’re just they’re basically smiling all the time you know what i mean they’re just there and smiling and they’re completely incompetent that’s not normally who’s there so instead contact them in 48 hours or so give them the first day to get back or if you really feel compelled to contact them the next day wait till the late afternoon to call which means you’ve collected a business card so that you have a way of reaching back to them your basic game plan is to create a positive impression you know i was listening to something on the radio on my way back from the gym today and they were talking about some actors and actresses and how good an impression they create and speaking of denzel washington they were talking about how he always has a warm smile but there’s a certain look in his eye that certain sparkle that he has that basically says you know i’m capable don’t mess with me and i’m going to be warm and friendly all at once that’s the look that you want to have you want to have a smile on your face as you talk with them you want to have a twinkle in your eyes that manifests self-confidence and you just want to present yourself as a human being first and then secondarily for the skills what i found over the years is when they like someone no matter where they meet someone you stand out from the pack and that’s really what you want to do as you walk in and see all the cattle there in the corral looking around to see which booth they’re going to next your biggest goal is to connect person to person with each individual that you meet with
So this is Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I hope you found this video helpful. If you did and you’re watching on youtube, click the like button that’s down below and let people know that it was helpful.
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