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Making Your Company More Visible at a Job Fair?

Posted by Cliff on from the improve-your-visibility dept.

moszern asks: "The startup I work for is growing to the point where we are need to do some serious hiring. We are toying with the idea of setting up a booth at a upcoming local college job fair. For the most part it seems these events are all the same with nothing much distinguishing each company from the next. Have you ever been to a job fair where a company had a very unorthodox booth or way of attracting potential employees? What would you want to see at a job fair to grab your attention?"

5 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Buya real booth by rueger · · Score: 2, Informative

    Seriously, find a display company who can design a proper trade show booth for you. Think ahead and plan to use it for many functions.

    Booth says legitimate. A 6' table with cardboard sign says rinky dink.

    And dress like a successful business, not a geek

    --
    Three Squirrels
  2. Having just been to a university job fair today. by mongoose(!no) · · Score: 2, Informative

    Go hire some professionals to design a sign / stand for you. If you're too cheap to do that, here is what I liked. A good clear sign that says what your company is. Don't make it hard to read. Leave the small stuff / hard to remember stuff for brochures. I want to be able to easily identify your stand, who you are, and what kind of business you are. I was looking for civil engineering firms, so my first reaction was go to looking for the big yellow signs stands that said "XYZ's Construction Firm" or had pictures of bulldozers and the like. As far as freebies go, they are cool and all, but it doesn't make a huge impact on which stands I go to or who I follow up with, they're just cumbersome. Oh and have contact information, like business cards for yourself or for the HR department that have an email address, phone number, or a current URL. I don't want to go looking through your website just to find the careers page which hasn't been updated in 2 years.

  3. Here's what to do by Dawang · · Score: 4, Informative

    I work at a university career center, so here's my US$0.02:

    • Call the career center and talk to the person running the career fair. They'll be the best resource for you and just as badly as you want to find a good student, they want their students to get hired by you.
    • BE NICE. Seriously. To everyone. Arrogance and/or plain rudeness doesn't get you anywhere. Don't expect to be treated like royalty just because you're "with the #3 bla bla bla". If you get on people's good side, good things happen.
    • Get a good, clear display. I've seen all sorts of displays at our fairs. The photo board that's a mish-mash and the 10 stacks of plain-paper flyers. Focus in on a few nicely done brochures/handouts, and a big clear display. The less garbage the students have to filter through, the easier it will be to find the talented ones.
    • Know what kind of candidates you're looking for and make your materials address that.
    • STAND IN FRONT OF YOUR TABLE. That way you look actively engaged in talking with students, not passively sitting back and waiting for them to come to you.
    • Do NOT stand in front of other companies' tables. Again, be nice. If you get a lot of students coming to see you, ask the fair organizer for some help. If you were nice to the organizer from the get-go, they'll come help you out in turn.
    • Hold events on the campus prior to the fair. Take out ads in the school newspaper. Give talks to student groups. Get known.
    • Offer internships. PAY YOUR INTERNS. You might not know this, but Federal law says either the employer has to pay the intern or the intern has to take a class. That means if you're not paying them, not only are you getting free labor, but the student has to pay to take a class, so in effect, they have to pay you to work for you. That's not Nice.

    That's not an all-inclusive list, and it's certainly not universal (all depends on the school's approach to running the fair). Some of it is probably obvious, but I hope it helps.

  4. From Experience... by EagleFalconn · · Score: 5, Informative

    As someone who is working on a second internship with another very large, successful company, I can tell you exactly what attracts my eye and what'll probably get the attention of other really bright kids too. If you want to get high performing people, you need a couple things:
    1) Free stuff. I know its stupid, but free stuff really will get you some attention. But DON'T go overboard. Example: Abbott Labs at Purdue University's Industrial Roundtable (the largest job fair on campus all year) had a massive booth, probably about 20 feet wide. And every person in line for an interview got this little back of free shit that I didn't really want. I just wanted a job. The only thing I still have from that bag is a magnetic chip clip that I use for my tortilla chips. For the record, I'm not working for Abbott this summer. Oh, they did give me some bandaids though.
    An example of doing it right: Los Alamos National Labs. Los Alamos gave away two things at the Industrial Roundtable. They gave away little folders with contact information of the right people, business cards, and brochures. They also had a list of deadlines. As a nice little freebee, I got a bobblehead pen with an alien on it. I don't know where it is anymore, but I remember it. I'm not working for Los Alamos this summer because they weren't looking for anyone in my field, but I was really excited to work for them.
    2) A professional looking booth. You could probably get away with a couple of mounted posters made down at the copy shop, but you want to attract good people. It'll be pricey, I'll bet, but find professional booth designers. About half the companies I talked to at the Industrial Roundtable were just random companies I saw and said "Hey, that booth looks interesting." Dow Chemical was one of those (Not working for them, their representative was rude as hell. It seems like a small thing to judge a whole company on, but he was so rude he wouldn't even take my resume or tell me how to apply).
    3) Make sure whoever is representing your company behaves professionally. This means a couple things. Don't be a jerk. It'll be tough depending on the venue (the IR this year was inside the Purdue Armory, which was insanely hot. The event was rained indoors), but this person is the face of your company. You don't want to risk turning away that one random engineer that might come up with the idea that turns your company into a multi-national. It seems like long odds, but like I said, if you're really looking to hire the best...
    4) ...and along those notes, you're a small company. Your pay probably won't be the same that, say, Boeing might offer (not working for Boeing, they didn't tell anyone they were going to be on campus and limited their information session to the first 20 people to show up. Don't do those either) so you need to make sure this person can make your company sound exciting, innovative and unique because thats pretty much all you've got to offer.
    5) Make sure your people know to take resumes. It doesn't matter if they just build a pile in the back of the booth and look at 3 of them. Just take the damn things, you never know what you might see and like. Also make sure they are prepared to give on-the-spot interviews. Thats half the reason to go to a jobfair. It lets people know you're taking their interest in you seriously, and that you like what they have to offer you. If you say you'll get in touch with someone, actually do it. And please, please, don't after an instant-interview say "Allright, now that you've just regurgitated all your qualifications to me, please apply on our website at www.IJustLostInterestInThisCompany.com." Go to the website is recruiter for, "Leave me alone, you're not interesting." If the laws require you to make sure they submit an official application, ask them to do so after they have interviewed or something.
    6) No booth babes. Don't be stupid. Unless you're working for Hooters, having 'booth babes' just means no one will take you seriously.
    7) One of the best ways to attract attention is to have a massive line infront of your booth. Rolls Royce had a line that was probably over 300 people long. Granted, thats hard to do without name recognition. But on the same note, don't make an artificially long line. That just results in frustration.

  5. Ten things you need to do by daverk · · Score: 2, Informative

    1. Show up late, leave early or leave your booth unmanned for long periods of time.
    2. Don't bring any literature describing the company or its products.
    3. Don't bring applications.
    4. Tell everyone that they have to go to your website to see the openings and apply and submit resumes.
    5. Make sure the people who are manning your booth don't have any influence on the hiring process.
    6. Send stand ins (or new hires) and tell everyone the hiring managers are at another location where the applicants are more qualified.
    7. Only have openings that everyone attending is overqualified(Janitor) or underqualified(CFO, Senior Mgr) for.
    8. Only have openings in locations across the country but there will be no relocation assistance.
    9. Tell people that you are really interested in hiring them, take their resume, fill out application, and never contact them again.
    10. Have a hiring freeze in place.