Career Fair Success Strategies

Thousands of people haggling over prices for the best quality fish is a typical day at a wholesale fish market. Yet in reality this is quite similar to a typical career fair where hundreds of students wait in line to speak with a recruiter and submit their resume in hope of catching the big one. If you’re not prepared, a career fair can swallow you up and spit you back out. I have attended many career fairs and have come away with certain tips and advice towards making a career fair a productive and positive experience.

Many undergraduates who attend a career fair for the first time do not realize that their interview with a prospective company begins with the first conversation with a recruiter. Having helped a company recruit in the past, I can finally understand why making a strong first impression is very important. Impressing a recruiter can involve a number of things such as appearance, self confidence, and extensive knowledge of the company. When hundreds of students are vying for the same position, you need to make yourself stand out.

Typically the career centers of most college campuses prepare for career fairs in advance and will provide information on what the company does and what kind of positions they are hiring for. Trust me you’ll want to be as prepared as possible before attending a career fair. Do your research on the companies so that when you do talk to the recruiter you can tell them about yourself and why you feel you would fit in with the position they have posted. There’s nothing worse for a recruiter than having to explain the position to people over and over again. Trust me they already know who they want and don’t want once you open your mouth.

While you’re talking to the recruiter about yourself, you should also take the opportunity to ask questions about them. The more involved you are talking with a recruiter the better chance you may have getting an interview spot. Try to always get their business card so that you can follow up with them and possibly create a contact.

Most importantly, bring extra copies of your resume. Passing out your resume at a career fair is a long standing tradition, so make sure you have enough copies with you. I have unfortunately had had the experience of not bringing enough resumes requiring me run off to a nearby computer lab to print some more out taking away precious time talking to recruiters. My rule of thumb is to bring an extra 15 - 20 resumes on top of the one's you've already printed. You never know what company will show up at the last minute that is a great fit for you.

Text Book Price Comparison

As a follow up to the recent guide towards saving money on text books, is a review of three text book price comparison sites. All three act as search engines that help find the best price for specific text book titles. For my review, I have used "Principle of Economics" with a list price of $193.95 and will only be searching for new books.

BigWords

www.bigwords.com

This site showed me the best price compared to the other two websites. It provides a description of the text book and what edition it is. The cheapest book they listed was a new international version at $37.91. When you select the book to purchase it automatically redirects you to the site offering the book making shopping for books online easier.

Cheap College Textbooks

www.cheapesttextbooks.com

This site provides much more detail information compared to that of both BigWords and BooksPrice such as shipping price, any available coupon codes, and any restrictions. What the site couldn't do was produce the best price compared to BigWords. The lowest price for "Principles of Economics" was $120.00. Like BigWords, the site redirects you directly the seller.

BooksPrice

www.booksprice.com

Like Cheap College Textbooks, this site provides plenty of information such as shipping costs in addition to a larger list of book vendors. What makes this site different is that it allows you to filter your searches for only new books or different price ranges. Like BigWords, it found the same book listed at $37.91 and directed you to seller of the book. I liked the layout of this site much better than the other two and would pick this site to at least compare prices of textbooks.

Career Builder Survey

Career builder recently published survey results of 31,000 hiring managers. Of interesting note,

49% of hiring managers reported applicants lying on their resume with 57% of hiring managers pulling the application from the candidate pool. Never lie on your resume, if you are not a right match for the job based on what you put on your resume, your company will eventually find out.

43% of hiring managers spend less than one minute on resumes. This is not a big surprise of course. Hiring managers will receive hundreds of resumes for one position and do not have the time to thoroughly look over your resume. The important message here is make your resume stand out.

What the Career Builder survey did have was a list of key words hiring managers use when looking through resumes:

• problem-solving and decision-making skills (50 percent)
• oral and written communications (44 percent)
• customer service or retention (34 percent)
• performance and productivity improvement (32 percent)
• leadership (30 percent)
• technology (27 percent)
• team-building (26 percent)
• project management (20 percent)
• bilingual (14 percent)

Of course this does not mean you should blanket your resume with these key words unless you truly have the experience to do so.

Career Builder Survey [CareerBuilder]

Text Books

Text books are a necessary part of college life and it can become quite expensive very quickly but it doesn't have to be. Saving money on books is an easy process as there is no reason to have to pay full prices for what publisher's think they are worth. Below are some ideas on how to save some money.

Campus Bookstore

Most bookstores always carry used books sold back by students at the end of the year. This is the easiest way to get books at a discounted price without too much effort. The drawbacks of course are that they are a limited quantity and at times the quality of a used book can be questionable at best. What's great about purchasing used books from your college book store is that the book store is responsible for putting out the correct text books you need before the class starts. This allows you to purchase your books well in advance before school starts and save some money as well. Get to the bookstore before school starts as these books will end up flying off the shelves first.

Off Campus Bookstores

Another great source of discounted text books are the local off campus bookstores. Typically these bookstores sell their books at or less than the used book prices of your campus book store. Similar to your campus bookstore, supplies are limited with sometimes questionable quality but allows you an alternative place to find the book you need. The major drawback of going to an off campus bookstore is that they supply many versions of the text book you need so buy beware! Make sure to come prepared with your class's syllabus to ensure you get the right book. Also, certain off campus bookstores may not have a return policy.

Amazon / Online

Online vendors such as Amazon will allow you to save a significant amount of money on text books even when the book is brand new. Major discounts can be found when purchasing used books though you are running the risk of getting a text book that has been completely highlighted. Another option online is to purchase the international version of your text book which is exactly the same but heavily discounted. What makes the international version so cheap is quality of the paper and it being a paper back. If you don't mind a lower quality version of a new book then, by means purchase the international version. Amazon also provides free shipping for certain books as well which makes purchasing a book online a major plus. The only drawback of purchasing a text book online is the time it takes to ship to you. If you are well aware of the textbooks your class requires, you can easily order it well in advance before school starts. To me this is a very preferable way of purchasing books behind student book exchanges.

Student Book Exchanges

Certain schools create a market exchange for students where they are allowed to sell their books at whatever prices they want. Typically students will sell their books well below the used bookstore price to ensure that they are quickly bought up. If you are looking for big discounts without waiting for shipment then look no further. However you must be willing to wait in a long line well before the exchange opens as books tend to go by very quickly.

Library

What's better than discounted books? How about free books? Libraries will typically have your textbook on reference and you can check it out for several hours during the day. Unfortunately that only allows you only a couple hours a day while being stuck at the library. But at least think of all the money you'll save!

If you have another ways you save money through text books please comment below.

Brain Hacking

I've posted articles about studying, but I ran across an interesting article about enhancing your brain power. This could come in handy if you need an extra boost while you're studying for this upcoming school year.

22 Ways to Overclock Your Brain [RirianProject]

Resume Building Internship Experience

One of the great things that a summer internship can do is beef up your resume in many different areas. My first internship was a position in the environmental department of an oil refinery. I was involved in projects that allowed me to learn new skills and understand how my degree would help me in the real world. When I sat down to fill out my resume, I realized how much more I could include other than adding a new section under job descriptions. In addition to improving my skills with Microsoft Excel, I also learned how to use specific environmental and plant operation software which I added to the list of the computer software I was familiar with. One of my projects required me to use a sampling analyzer which I became proficient in using and could now add to my resume under laboratory equipment device I was capable in using.

Your internship can not only benefit you with great job experience but it can also help you build familiarity with specific software and equipment that other companies are looking to hire people with skills for. Many companies that offer internships are very proactive about training their interns with every aspect of their job. I always made it a point at my other internships to try to get training on relevant tools and skills to add to my resume as I knew that other companies would be looking for these skill sets. The more software and equipment skills you can learn at your internship the more appealing you will be to the next company looking to hire you.

How NOT to Study for an Exam

There are probably a lot of different good ways you can study for an exam but I figure it would be much easier to list all the ways NOT to study. I have tried every one of these methods and can be the first to say that these methods don't work out so great.

Cram All Night!

Studies have shown that the human brain can retain more information if saturated over a long extended period of time. Needless to say, craming won't get you an A on your next midterm. I have tried cramming before a miderm and I barely able got a C-, though I'm sure some of you are thinking, that's still better than failing. True a C- is better than failing, but a C- minus is not going to help you get a job. My rule of thumb is always to start preparing at least one week in advance to give yourself time to cover more material with more detail. Pulling an all nighter to get a C is not the most rewarding experience you can have.

Study Only the Practice Exams

A professor's favorite tactic to ensure a good grade distribution is the old "bait and switch". Give the students a couple practice exams and then pull a fast one on the real exam with material covered only in lecture. Granted, all professors aren't so evil but this kind of of switch are not that uncommon. Practice exams are a good way of gauging how well you understand the material but you should never assume that this is the only material the professor is going to cover. If you can, ask older classmates for their practice exams so that you can have a better spread of questions and materials to prepare from.

They're Only Homework Questions

Why bother looking at old homework questions? Three to five weeks of homework questions is an ample supply of material to study from. Professors pick out the homework questions for a reason as they feel that they represent the material of that week. Review old homework assignments and look for similar ones to flex your brain before an exam. You never know, but professors have been known to use homework questions as exam questions before.

You Get a Cheat Sheet, Why Study?

Cheat sheets are great for classes that require a lot of reference material. But what's the point of using them if you don't know how to use any of the material you put on the cheat sheet? Cheat sheets can become a false sense of security for many students when the true intentions of the cheat sheet is to study your material ahead of time and understand everything you put down on the cheat sheet. Making a cheat sheet is actually a great study method as long as you can use everything on it.

If you have any do NOT study techniques to add to this list, please leave a comment below.

Staying in Shape on the Cheap

In order to avoid the Freshmen 15 and yet still live frugally, I ran into a great post about working out without all that expensive gym equipment. It's a great way to unwind and get rid of all that stress built up from assignments and midterm studying. Even though I'm not in school full time anymore, I still take the time out a couple days a week to exercise to get rid of work stress. Trust me, it's well worth it!

Minimalist Fitness: How to Get In Lean Shape With Little or No Equipment [ZenHabits]

Soul Searching

At about this time of the year, when I was a sophomore, I was dreading the fact that school was starting again because it forced me to face the reality that I was under Academic Probation. I was under Academic Probation for the second time during the Spring Quarter of my freshmen year, and the summer break had allowed me to forget about my worries. I was conflicted on what I had to do for my future career. Was engineering just not the right fit? How do I deal with changing majors? Would switching schools be the worst thing? These were some of the many questions racing through my head. The reality was that I should have just switched majors but I was too ashamed to think that I would fail my parent's expectations to consider it a real option. I decided to bite the bullet and stick with my major and hope for the best.

In retrospect, I should have given more thought towards changing my major to something that was more enjoyable and better suited for me. Though I was able to survive through a rigorous engineering curriculum, it was a difficult journey that made me doubt myself on more than one occasion. Being on Academic Probation should have been a sign that I needed to either change my study habits or that this major was not for me. I am currently working as an engineer now but find myself leaning away from it more and more. My regrets of course was that I was not able to pursue something I would have enjoyed. But these are the choices in life we make.

If you are currently on academic probation or finding that your major wasn't what you were expecting, make sure to think long and hard about your future. Don't worry about what others think and find what's right for you.

Interview Quick Guide

Being successful at an interview to get an internship or a full time job can really become a full time job itself. There are many ways to prepare for an interivew, but for those who need a quick guide to getting past an interview, I have listed some pointers below:

Do your Homework

The sure fire way to bomb an interview is walking in blind. Not doing research about the company or organization tells the interviewer you don't care enough about the position to learn more about them. I would advise doing as much research as possible about the company through their company website, annual reports, or third party research.

Always Asks Questions

At the end of any interview the recruiter will always ask, "Do you have any questions for me?". If you answer no, you might as well give up your interview spot and stayed home. This is another sign for the recruiter that you didn't care enough about the position to inquire more about it. This is the best time for you to turn the tables on the interviewer and ask some well pointed questions. Can't think of any you really want to ask? Generic questions such as benefits, work-life balance, and social environment are good ways to start a conversation with a recruiter.

Dress to Impress

There's nothing that says, "I am wasting your time" more than coming in slopily dressed. This of course should be a no brainer but just in case, guys: dress slacks, dress shirt, and tie at a minimum, and girls: dress slacks and a blouse.

This is just a basic list of interview tips just to get by. Redsprouts is working on a series of articles designed around acing the interview. Until then, good luck!