Ron's Corner: Make the Best of A Career Fair
EXP Board Member and EXP Alumni and Young Adult Committee Chair Ron Roberts, Jr., is a self-labeled “Career & College Planning Partner.” Ron draws on over 16 years as a college career advisor, corporate recruiter, and youth non-profit consultant. Check out his website, Career Intelligence for Young Leaders, and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Communicating Your Value to Employers During Career Fair and Interview Experiences
For those currently attending a university, you already know that many employers have been coming to your campus this fall to find candidates for their internship and full-time job opportunities. During this time on the academic calendar, employers will host company information sessions, participate in campus career fairs, and ultimately select and interview candidates. If you are seeking an internship or full-time job, how do you stand out among the throngs of candidates seeking the same opportunities? The key is to understand and effectively communicate to employers the value you can offer them.
Let’s dive into this.
Employers are investing a lot of time, energy, and money into finding their next crop of interns and entry-level employees. It is easy to see this through the abundance of time that employers spend on college campuses and the insane volume of company promotional items they give away. This investment is made because employers ultimately hope to land future interns and employees who will truly benefit them in the short term and certainly the long term. Your goal as an internship or job seeker is to convince your target employer(s) that you are one of the select candidates that will reward their investment.
You start by understanding and truly believing in your own value to benefit an employer. A few areas in which you can offer value to employers (and to others) are:
Your education. Employers are coming to your campus because they value the quality of education you are receiving.
Your skills/abilities. What you are good at doing, whether it comes naturally to you or through training.
Your knowledge. You know things that others do not know, giving you a unique body of knowledge that can benefit an employer.
Your personality. Whether you are conscientious, high-achieving, charismatic, hard-working, or energetic, aspects of your personality can add value to an employer.
Your experiences. Your positive and even challenging experiences have shaped you into the person you are today. If those experiences are leveraged right, they can make you a valuable employee.
Your values. If the things that are most important to you (e.g. family, community, achievement, your faith) are aligned with those of an employer, you can certainly add value to that employer.
Your goal is to understand your value--and particularly your unique value. This will help you build your confidence and authentically share it with employers. You will simply need to take the time to do an in-depth assessment of who you are and what you can possibly offer others.
Once you have identified your value, the next step is to be sure that you understand what your target employer(s) are looking for in college candidates. You want to be sure that your dream employer is actually looking to invest in what you have to offer. You will learn this by doing a lot of research into your target employers, checking out their website and social media, and looking into their job descriptions and their employees to understand their values and the employees that are successful and happy with them. Employer information is readily available through websites, news articles, and company review sites like Glassdoor.
I also encourage you to take the extra step to reach out to their employees on LinkedIn to schedule informational chats, which will give you deeper insight into what your target employer values in their employees. Performing this level of due diligence will help ensure that you are devoting your time and energy towards the employers that will truly appreciate the value you have to offer them.
After you have completed the above steps, the next step is to craft a message to effectively communicate your value at a career fair, an interview, or any other interaction with an employer. This message is usually labeled an “elevator pitch”.
An elevator pitch is a brief introduction that you can communicate to an employer during a typical elevator ride (30-60 seconds). Your elevator pitch should include your name, class level, major, internship/job aspirations, related experiences (e.g., internships, academic projects), and how you think you can benefit the employer. You can find sample elevator pitches online. You can get help from your career center in developing one.
Once you have an elevator pitch, practice. A lot. Rehearse in front of a mirror. Try it out with your friends, mentors, or career advisors, so you can naturally, and persuasively, share it with an employer. You ultimately want to deliver a message that persuades an employer to see your value as indispensable and compels that employer to invest in you from among the number of other internship or job seekers.
Understanding your value to employers and knowing how to communicate it will be foundational to your success at career fairs, interviews, and any other engagement with employers. It will also boost your confidence as a candidate. Be sure to visit your college’s career center (if you have not done so already) to obtain additional information on how to effectively engage with employers at career fairs and interviews.
All of the best for the rest of this fall.