Editor’s Note: Previously in this Career Talk series, our experts on doctoral-career counseling have offered advice on running a tandem job search in academe and industry, searching for nonfaculty careers, writing cover letters, building a CV, designing a résumé, and other topics.
Fall has arrived, and with it, cooler weather, pumpkin-spice lattes, a new semester, and job-fair season. Job fairs, which gather many employers in one location, are often seen as the purview of undergraduate job seekers, but that need not be the case. Doctoral students and new Ph.D.s who are considering their career options outside of academe can find much value in attending a job fair, whether it’s a general fair or one designed specifically for graduate students.
As methods of job searching go, job fairs have pros and cons. The pros: You get actual face time with recruiters, and therefore can tell them about your background and ask questions about their organization. The cons: Fairs can be loud and chaotic, and not everyone feels comfortable in that sort of environment. But with a bit of preparation, you can significantly increase your chances of having productive, on-the-spot conversations with potential employers.
And that should be your main goal for a job fair: to talk with people and make connections. Don’t go in telling yourself that you need to come out with a job interview lined up. Even if you speak at length with a recruiter about a position, you’ll almost certainly need to go through the process of applying online. But the connection you make with a recruiter at the fair gives your application a better shot at making it to the top of the pile.
Should you go? Generally speaking, employers come to a career fair because they have multiple positions they would like to fill or an opening that they hire for regularly, on a rolling basis. They attend because it’s a good use of their time to meet many potential job candidates in one place and build a pipeline of applicants.
We’ve both been involved in organizing campus job fairs — some employers see career fairs as very useful; others will never attend, no matter how hard organizers try. These fairs often feature employers who are large enough to be hiring regularly. But they may also feature small organizations that are looking to build name recognition.
What does that mean for Ph.D. students? It may mean that some of the employers you’re most interested in are not at a career fair, or if they are, they may be hiring for roles other than the ones you are interested in.
Even if you’ve scanned the list of employers coming to a campus job fair and not found what you’re looking for, we would still encourage you to attend. Most organizations send HR professionals who help manage hiring across a range of roles. The job fair is your opportunity to have a conversation with the recruiting team. Perhaps you’ll be able to learn something about the structure of the organization, the various positions it has, and the hiring process. It’s always worth your time to connect with an employer in person.
A note on virtual career fairs. This type of job fair has been around for awhile but Covid brought it to the forefront. Some virtual fairs are offered by campus career offices, others by employers or a consortia of employers. Virtual fairs might take place via a series of Zoom meetings, or through a platform like Handshake, CareerEco, or Brazen. Just as with in-person fairs, employers want to make the event worth their time by seeing as many job candidates as the virtual format allows.
If you’re planning to attend a virtual career fair, take the time to set up a profile, upload your résumé, and master the technology in advance. It will save you confusion on the day of the event. Treat a virtual fair as you would a formal Zoom interview: dress professionally, prepare in advance (more on that below), and turn on your camera. Being an active, engaged participant will help you stand out both during the event and in the hiring process.
Before the job fair. A list of participating companies and organizations will generally be posted a week or two before the fair (though it is subject to change). Familiarize yourself with it, then do your research and prepare your materials:
- Visit the website of each participating organization on the list to get a sense of its mission. Check out its list of open positions and see if there are any that you want to ask about.
- Develop a shortlist of organizations and companies you’re especially excited to speak with. For each one, ask yourself: What challenges is this employer facing? What kinds of problems could I solve for them? What do I bring to the table that is unique?
- Think about how you want to present yourself. Spend a few hours sprucing up your résumé (do not bring your academic CV to an industry job fair), as well as your LinkedIn page and professional website, if you have them. Think about getting some business cards printed, especially if you’ll be attending conferences or other networking events where they might be useful. Make an appointment with someone at your career center or swap materials with a fellow graduate student for proofreading and feedback. Once you’re happy with your materials, print some hard-copy versions to bring with you to the fair.
- Craft a 30- to 45-second “elevator pitch” about yourself. Think about what a recruiter will want to know about you. That may not be the topic of your thesis or dissertation. What is your most relevant work experience? What are your particular skills and strengths? Do you have a connection to the mission or goals of the company or organization? Practice your pitch until you feel comfortable giving it.
During the job fair. Job fairs are business-casual events, and we recommend dressing as you would to give a conference talk. That said, make sure to wear something you’re comfortable in and be prepared to do a fair amount of standing and walking. You may find yourself waiting in line to speak with recruiters, in which case we suggest eavesdropping shamelessly on the people ahead of you and incorporating what you learn into your own conversation.
If you are nervous, we suggest going on the earlier side. It may be less crowded, and the recruiters will be fresh. Start with the organizations or companies in which you are most interested. Share your résumé and business cards and get their business cards and brochures. Afterward, make brief notes about the interaction in a notebook, on your phone, or on the back of the recruiter’s business card to jog your memory later on.
Finally, a note about questions. It’s entirely appropriate to ask about the organization and its job openings, but always keep in mind: This isn’t a formal job interview, and the recruiter has many other people to chat with, so it’s important to keep your questions brief. If you end up applying for a job and getting an interview, you can ask more detailed questions then.
We also do not recommend that you ask any version of this question: “Where would someone with a Ph.D. in [field] fit in with your organization?”
That’s a poor question for two reasons. First, it assumes the recruiter knows what it means to have a doctorate in a particular field, and that may not be the case. Even if you are in a STEM field, and speaking with a recruiter for a bioengineering firm, it is better to start by describing your background, rather than using your degree program as shorthand. Second, that question puts the onus on the recruiter to figure out where you would fit — something they can’t do without a lot more information about who you are and what you’ve done. For that reason, some recruiters find the question off-putting, and the last thing you want to do is to annoy a recruiter. Treat the conversation as an opportunity to find out more about the organization or company so that you can determine if and how you might fit in there.
Here are a few questions that might lead to better conversations with a recruiter:
- What are some of the challenges that your organization expects to tackle in the next few years?
- How is your organization looking to grow or expand?
- What would you like candidates who are thinking about applying to know or understand about your organization?
After the job fair. Let’s say you had a great conversation with a recruiter, and the organization has an opening for which you seem like a strong fit. Don’t waste any time before applying. Ideally you’ll submit your application materials within 48 hours. That might seem incredibly fast if you are accustomed to the monthslong timeline of the academic job cycle, but industry generally moves much faster in hiring than does higher education.
You might decide to make minor tweaks to your résumé based on the conversation you had with the recruiter, but if you did your homework before the fair, it should be more or less ready to go. Be sure to drop the name of the recruiter somewhere; there might be a field for that in the application itself, but you can also note it in your cover letter. For example: “I was excited to speak with [Name of Recruiter] at the [Name of the Job Fair] about the position of [Title] at [Organization Name].”
Perhaps you had a great conversation with a recruiter, but the company didn’t have any job openings for you at the moment. That’s OK. Send a note anyway to say that you were glad to connect and hope that the company will keep you in mind for future opportunities. If you promised to send a recruiter anything — like a PDF of your résumé — make sure you do that.
Add the recruiters you talked with to your network on LinkedIn and call it a win. You never know what may pan out in the future. You won’t walk out of a job fair with a job, but you can walk out a few steps closer to an offer.
