Making the most of career fairs

On your marks... get set... go! It's time to go back to university and with the start of the autumn term come the career fairs. For many students, this is a great opportunity to learn more about their respective chosen employers and to get their hands on some cool freebies. I feel for students - and in particular final year students - during this time. The real world still seems far away and there is an entirely new pressure of writing a dissertation on the table. Who has time or capacity to properly digest information from 15, 20, 50 odd employers on their graduate opportunities?

I therefore want to pass on a few tips to students out there to ensure you are getting the most out of the career fairs at your universities.

1) Prepare and make choices - it is all too easy to just go with the flow and to stop everywhere. The likelihood is that you will probably end up speaking to many employers and will feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of opportunities and options. My recommendation for you is to spend some time with the career fair programme ahead of time and to identify whom you really want to go and see. Career fairs give you a great opportunity to ask people on campus what their experience in the business is really like and it is an opportunity I recommend you use. Having a bit more clarity on which organisation you would consider working for and which ones are "out" can help you to use your time at the fair more effectively. You can do some high level research ahead of time and get answers to your burning questions. I generally suggest picking no more than 10 organisations to explore in more detail.

2) Test industries - if your heart is set on going into a particular industry, e.g. consulting or FMCG, go and see all employers represented for that particular industry. I often experience students that make up their mind about a particular industry based on meeting one particular employer - their competition might surprise you. It's worth exploring what is happening. In addition, if you find a role in your organisation of choice, you already have a leg up, because you understand a little bit about what the competition is doing.

3) Include 3 wildcard organisations - I always recommend to students to explore a few employers that they would normally never consider. This could be down to the fact that

• you have an initial idea that you would never want to join an organisation in this industry
• you have heard about an employer, but know very little about them
• this particular employer always held some form of fascination for you.

Including wildcards in your target companies will help you to explore some extremes and they can either help to challenge some of your ingoing assumptions around what is right for you or can help to solidify your decisions and reinforce how you feel about different employers. Make sure your wildcards span different industries to really help you explore your thinking.

4) Go to the fair early - As you can imagine, organisations get to meet a lot of people over the course of the day and they are likely going to have to tell the same story and the same details multiple times. They often have travelled far and have a long day until they finally get home. Going early means you can get their attention when they are on top of their game. I recommend not missing out on this opportunity.

I really hope some of these tips are useful for you - as you challenge your thinking today for a healthier career choice tomorrow and I look forward to meeting some of you at the Danone stands at your universities.