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Why you’re never too old, or too seasoned, to attend a job fair

Ever seen a job fair flyer posted at the commissary and zoomed your shopping cart right past? What about an email advertisement for a local job fair. Did you send it straight to the recycle bin?

Employment experts say passing up those job fairs is your first mistake on the road to employment success. Job fairs are a treasure trove of opportunities, if you are prepared and know how to navigate the event to tailor it to your own success.

Jacob Share, is blog author of http://jobmob.co.il, a site dedicated to bringing together people from all over the world and in his country of Israel to share advice and experience as they search for jobs.

One of his recent blogs, “25 Reasons Job Fairs Are Not a Waste of Time,” resonates across the world, gives sound advice and, is a pretty great read.

So what’s Share’s number one reason for attending a job fair? To get off the couch after what may be a long and disappointing job search process.

Technology offers us ways to find everything we need from the comfort of our home, but physically getting out of your pajamas and going out to speak to potential employers not only changes your pace, but boosts your psyche.

“It’s too easy for job seekers to get into a routine at home in front of their computer, but unless that routine is leading to a string of interviews and offers, it’s a routine that needs to be broken,” Share wrote in his blog.

And if you’re going to go ahead and go, you might as well be prepared which is the key to a successful job fair visit, Share stresses in his blog.

His list of preparations:

  1. Practice your ‘elevator pitch’ -  “Just like the 30 seconds you might have to impress someone in an elevator ride, your chance to talk with a company representative may be short, so you need to impress quickly,” Share wrote.
  2. Prep your resume, references and samples of your work and bring a stack of copies - “There will be many other people in the crowd that you can network with, who can proofread your resume, give feedback or just pass a copy onto someone they think will be interested,” he writes. Share also encourages the importance of including your references with your resume.“People love to say in their resume that ‘references will be provided on request’ but that’s a mistake. Just have them ready with you in case you get asked about them.”
  3. Dig deeper for information - “If you’re using the fair to explore and you don’t have a specific target in advance, then visit all the seemingly relevant booths. Afterwards, go for a second pass to the few that really got your attention and use the opportunity to dig for useful information that would be harder to find at home in front of the computer.”
  4. Connect with company representatives as people – Share writes that many company representatives probably won’t know the answer to questions about specific job openings, so don’t ask. He writes, “Instead, ask them general questions about what it’s like to work at the company or better yet, how they themselves were hired. Connect with them as people, not as company employees. If it is someone with an influence on the hiring process, you want to impress them with a good question or two that reaches beyond what’s in the job description you saw, something that demonstrates you’ve done your homework on that company. Either way, ask for a business card so you can reach out to them after the fair.”

Share began his blog several years ago after a down size and continues to inspire his readers with his experiences and lessons learned during his own job search. His biggest word of advice for a job fair attendee is preparedness. He writes,

“Be prepared. The vast majority of people who attend job fairs don’t have all the right intentions in mind. And a vast majority of people don’t even attend job fairs, so if you’re well prepared, it won’t be hard to stand out in the crowd.”

Read more of Share’s top “25 Reasons” at http://jobmob.co.il/blog/job-fairs-reasons-to-go/

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