career fairs are about growth and progress

This week I had the opportunity to travel down to Provo Utah for a STEM Career Fair at Brigham Young University. The career fair itself was AMAZING. I spoke with representatives from Dell, DoTERRA, Qualtrics, iServe, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Microsoft, and that was only on the first day of the career fair. I learned so much about what people are looking for in a candidate for employment in my discipline, where I stood as a potential candidate, and what I could do to improve on within the next few months before I graduate. I learned SO much.

To say I was intimidated by the situation as a whole is a complete understatement of what I felt. There were SO many students there, and I bet most if not all of them were smarter than me and knew what they wanted to do. I felt incompetent and beneath everyone in the entire center.

But then I had this crazy voice inside my head that just screamed, SO WHAT!?! And that's exactly what I needed. I had to put those thoughts outside of my head, because I knew if I didn't I was going to have a horrible time and not want to talk to anyone. I had to tell myself that I was trying and that I WANTED to become successful in my career and being there and interactive with everyone was going to get me one step closer to my goals.

This fixed mindset of being beneath everyone and incompetent to my discipline was hindering my experience with this career fair. But as soon as I switched my mindset and I decided to be excited about growing and being okay with not knowing everything helped me have a great experience. It was definitely uncomfortable being okay with not being "a perfect candidate" but it was also humbling and a great growth experience.

So I have some takeaways that I wish someone would have told me about career fairs before I went to my first one though. I mean I went to my very first career fair… as a senior. I went to my first career fair… needing an internship. And I went to my first career fair … looking for possible career routes... because honestly I was still unsure of what I even wanted to do when I graduate in just a few months.

1. DON'T WAIT UNTIL YOUR SENIOR YEAR TO GO TO A CAREER FAIR. See, to some people this advice is a given and very obvious. But for first generation college students like myself I had no idea how important and how much growth potential it could give you just as a student in any grade or major.

These career fairs are filled with people who want to PAY you for doing things that you hopefully love doing. Understanding companies, what their values are and where you WANT to be is so crucial. Think about it this way, you wouldn’t want to make a decision on where you’ll spend 40+ hours a week at in a matter of a few hours. Hopefully you take time to dissect what these potential companies of employment are about. And more importantly how well you think you will fit in the company as well as how happy you would be while there.

2. RESEARCH THE COMPANIES THAT WILL BE ATTENDING THE CAREER FAIR THAT YOU ARE GOING TO. Again probably an obvious thing to some but very crucial to having a successful career fair experience. One that I had no idea about… yet again. BUT I cannot be more blunt with this though.

There is nothing more embarrassing than going to a career fair and not knowing what these companies do or who they are. I mean the point of a career fair to to potentially network yourself to an internship or even a career opportunity. You don’t want the first thing you say to these potential employers to be, “So what does your company do?” Especially when most career fair purposes are designed for you to sell yourself to them.

3. DRESS TO IMPRESS. You want to make a statement and show these potential employers that you care about your outward appearance and that you are taking this opportunity seriously.

One thing that I saw was that people didn’t care at all. Like I saw some guy wearing slacks, a white shirt and tie but wore sandals. And I saw the opposite as well. I saw some guys wearing very casual shirt and jeans but fancy shoes. So my one advice is don’t do either of these. Choose one or the other, professional or casual. Don’t make these potential employers guess whether you are taking this seriously or not. Just but as upfront with it as you can.

4. FOLLOW UP WITH PEOPLE YOU INTERACTED WITH, ESPECIALLY PEOPLE YOU GAVE YOUR RESUME TO. This part of the career fair is so important! And it happens a week or two AFTER it’s over. This allows the employers to look through all the resumes that they received and really determine who they would like to contact further.

By contacting them later on you’re giving them one more opportunity to see that you really are interested in their company and pursuing a career or internship with them. This will allow them to make the decision to potentially re-look at your resume and see something on there that they as a company may have missed out on.

5. ENJOY THE TIME YOU HAVE THERE. If this is your first or twentieth time attending, just enjoy the opportunity you have to be at a career fair.

Attending a career fair says so much about the type of person you are and where you want to go. You obviously want to better yourself by getting into a better career, so if anything, give yourself a pat on the back. There are plenty of people in the world who wish they were able to be in your position. You’ve worked your butt off in school, be proud that you are looking for a career now with all that hard work. You may not be the best candidate for all opportunities, but by putting yourself out there you are already giving yourself the upper hand and you are already growing so much.

And that’s what this is all about anyways, right? Growth and progress.