How to find a job by NOT going to the career fair!

I find career fairs (also known as job fairs) to be a waste of time. You don't usually talk to the hiring manager and instead, you just put your resume in the stack the company already has at their table. You use gas money to drive there, you waste an hour or two, and then you use more gas to drive back home. Wouldn't it be nicer if we could just skip the job fair and talk directly to the hiring manager instead? I can tell you how to do that in a few steps!

First, do a web search of career fairs in your area. When I used Google to do that, it gave me a list of fairs with their dates and times in my metro area. Next, click on each job fair web page and see if it fits you. If it's a clearance fair and you are not cleared, there is a good chance you are wasting your time.

Second, look at each career fair web page and see if it tells you what companies are actually going to be there. This information is key. If it doesn't tell you what companies are going to be there, sign up to go to the job fair. So far, every job fair I have signed up for has then e-mailed me a spreadsheet list of companies that are going to be at the job fair, and what kinds of jobs they are hiring for. Scan through that list and see if any of these companies are hiring for your skillset.

Third, instead of going to the job fair, find the hiring managers on LinkedIn or look on the "About Us" of the company's web page to see who is the CEO / CTO / CIO / COO, vice president, president, director, etc. You will need to contact them via a LinkedIn InMail or an e-mail directly to their company e-mail address. I'd say 95% of the time if you e-mail [email protected] or [email protected], the e-mail will not bounce back. Don't send an e-mail with both e-mail addresses at the same time because that can potentially make you look like a spammer. I would then use my article on how to contact hiring managers to get noticed - How to Easily Write a Cover Letter That Gets Noticed In 5 Steps.

That's literally it! No hours of time wasted handing out resumes to companies that probably aren't interested in you or submitting a resume that gets lost in the stack of other resumes from the job fair. GOOD LUCK!

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OTHER ARTICLES FROM RACHEL BICKNELL:

How to Easily Find Hiring Managers That Want You to Contact Them!

Want to Telecommute? Use These 5 Keywords to Start Your Job Search

How to Use Facebook to Rev up Your Job Search

How to Find (Local) Companies and Jobs That Are Not on The Job Boards

How to Easily Write a Cover Letter That Gets Noticed In 5 Steps

About Rachel Bicknell:

Rachel Bicknell is a network engineer with over 15 years of experience and a degree in computer science. She is looking to become a cloud engineer; She has her AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification while working on her other AWS cloud certifications.