for Making Career Fairs a Recruiting Success

1. Know Your Audience

Bill Banis, Northwestern University's career services director, says today's college students are very busy and "time poor like the most of us," technically savvy, prefer realistic concrete information, and maybe more sensitive to diversity issues than presious students.  If you haven't done a focus group with any of your new hires or taken a career director to lunch lately to discover what attracts this population, now is the time.  Remember that each campus has a culture and characteristics unique to its student body.  Customization could nicely set your organization apart from your on campus competitors in the eyes of the students there.

2. Send Your Alumni Back to Campus

Great interpersonal skills is by far the primary selection criterion to use in identifying co-workers to staff a career fair.  Other criteria include: desire to recruit; positive and non-cynical attitude about self and your organization and its work; one to three years of tenure with your organization (relatively recent graduate); and high energy.  Keep in mind that a well done career fair is hard work if the traffic is high.

3. Staff Your Booth to Accommodate Peaks and Valleys of Traffic

Experienced recruiters know there will be boring times with little traffic and nonstop times when you feel as if you were a part of a wedding reception line.  Find out from career services staff when high and low tides occur before the day of the career fair.  You'll be in a better informed position to schedule staffers to work and release them for breaks.

4. Integrate High Tech and High Touch

Having high-tech equipment displayed, especially if it showcases your products or services, is a real plus.  However, simply displaying the stuff will not win friends or influence people.  You've got to have a member (or members) of your team who is responsible for operating it, promoting it, and most importantly, linking its presence back to your recruitment effort.  Don't forget to check out campus accommodations to hook-up before you decide to bring high-tech to the career fair.

5.  Give-Aways Attract Job Prospects

Find something that no one else is giving away.  If you haven't a clue what that give-away might be, survey a half dozen career services directors to find out what's hot, what's not, and what's not yet been thought about.  You should identify something that will arouse curiosity and link to your recruiting message, if possible.  Always ensure that you have an adequate supply to distribute.  It's bad news when one roommate gets something and another cannot.

6. Be Very Careful About Shipping Your Materials and Have a Backup Plan

Horror stories abound about recruiters who arrive at the career fair and find their booth, their give-aways, and their brochures nowhere in sight.  It's very difficult, if not impossible, to attract candidates without the right tools.  It may even be better to leave before you get started if you find yourself in this predicament.  You will certainly be outdistanced by your competitors.  Take it from someone who never wants to arrive on campus empty handed, always have a plan B.  For example, take 50 or so copies with you instead of shipping everything.  At least you can start your work while waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

7. Use Candidate Screening Tools

Let's face it.  Simply meeting and greeting, handing out give-aways, and collecting resumes is not the most efficient way to work at a career fair.  Consider the jump in your effectiveness if you gave your team members a set of four screening questions to ask and responses to record as they collected resumes.  One recruiter, with a decentralized recruitment approach, has discovered that collecting two resumes from each interested student greatly helps speed up the routing process after the career fair.

8. Align Your Initial Screening Interviews With the Career Fair

A number of campuses now offer employers the opportunity to conduct interviews in conjunction with the career fair.  Why make two trips to campus of you can accomplish several activities in one trip?  If a campus doesn't offer interview space or time, negotiate to interview off campus during the fair and on the following day.

9. Pursue Several Goals at the Career Fair

Tom Peters once said that time would overtake quality as the primary competitive factor leading to success.  I always think about how much time it takes to travel to and from campus.  Unless the campus is local, when I factor this travel time into the investment my organization is making, it doesn't make sense to engage in just one activity once I finally arrive on campus.  Smart recruiters across the country are ensuring that their time on campus is well spent by scheduling activities around the career fair such as hosting faculty roundtables or dinners, visiting the career services office to check on the organization's materials available to students, instructing a class or workshop for students, or speaking to a student organization.

10. Follow-Up Follow-Up Follow-Up

Once you've made a big splash at a campus career fair, don't "love'em and leave'em".  You've hot a great opportunity to reinforce a first impression.  Best rule of thumb is to scope out your follow-up process (who is doing what and when) before the career fair.  Consider categorizing your candidates into three groups as the career fair ends; the Best Match, the Possible Match, and the No Match.  Although every candidate should be viewed as a potential customer or client in the future, differentiate your follow up among the three categories.  In other words, spend more time and energy on the Best Matches!  You'd be surprised how many employers follow up with all their career fair attendees in exactly the same manner.

And don't forget... while you're planning your career fairs strategy, share these tips with your line managers who recruit, too.  We're all looking for ways to increase the return on the investment of recruiting time and money.  And who knows?  Your line managers may have some great ideas too!

Reprinted in part, from the August 1, 1997 issue of Spotlight, with permission of the National Association of Colleges and employers, copyright holder.