People from the human resources department or recruiters can have a frustrating job when it comes to finding new talent. There are definitely a myriad of different booths in every job fair and you see a few of them excel at really drawing people into their areas and keeping them there. A lot of this can be done using things like promotional pens that really do work because they bring people over to the booth and they advertise every time they write with the pen as well. It can be clear at some job fairs that some booths are very excited about the opportunities and the talent that they have gotten the chance to talk to while other companies are furious because it seemed like a complete waste of time to drive down to the fair and set up their booth. These are the people who didn’t come prepared and didn’t do any research on the people they would be meeting during the job fair.

Planning before you go to the fair is the one thing that you have to do before blindly rushing onto the battlefield. Making sure that your exhibition stand actually does stand out can be a challenge. Dressing you and your area up can be the difference between hiring quickly and having a position open for months on end. Having people wandering up and down the halls with information will also increase the exposure of your company and you will have a much better chance of getting candidates to notice you. Setting up quick interviews on the spot will also save you a lot of time and effort later on. If you find out more about your candidates at the fair, the more you will have to go on in later interviews. You also need to get accurate data on your candidates so you can decide how many are actually a great fit for the job. If not, then you will have to waste time interviewing people that were never going to get the job in the first place.

Finding a job can be a daunting task if one doesn’t leverage opportunities. Due to the competitive nature of the job market is becoming a necessity to play the numbers game in order of each desired results. It’s become more important to take advantage of opportunities where a job seeker can leverage their time. Attending a job fair is one way to make more meaningful connections with prospective employers. With anywhere from 10 to hundreds of opportunities the rules of the game change to making an impact within a short period of time. The key to making the most of this situation is through deliberate preparation before the event happens. Through this preparation will magnify the number of meaningful contacts they make rather than just making contact.

It’s important to have a short two to three minute mini speech about yourself that can be delivered at a moments notice. But hundreds and even thousands of people going through the job fair you may only have two or three minutes with each employer and you want to make sure that you leave them with the most important points about who you are and what you have the offer. One could argue that the information is readily available on the resume that you give them but it’s more about making an impact to generate interest for them to actually read the resume. For more connection or impact that you make on them increases the odds of them remembering you when it’s time to contact candidates to fill their positions.

Ideally you would have already identified the top 10 or 20 companies that you want to make sure that you connect with before you enter the job fair. The reason you want to have a short list is so that you can make sure you see them all, get your questions answered and make your impression. You want to make sure you have an attention grabber or a trigger to help them remember who you are when you do your follow-up work. This can be achieved through asking well thought out relevant questions or if thinking outside of the box and doing something different to set you apart from everyone else they’re seeing that day.