stem fair

Dressing for Career Fairs or Interviews

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Career Fairs

The variety of people/companies you’ll meet at a career fair makes it difficult to decide what to wear. This website has some good general tips for what to wear to a career fair. At BYU, I generally see people wearing business professional to career fairs.

Interviews

An interviewer at Lucid said recently that they use this rule of thumb: notice what the employees at the company are wearing, and then raise that +1. For example, if the employees are dressed in casual, go for business casual. One caveat: if they’re dressed in business professional, don’t show up in a tux or a formal dress. You won’t get points docked off but they’ll likely laugh at you.

If you’re confused about the difference between business casual and business professional, here is a helpful link for you. The picture below also has a link to an article that I find helpful.

The Balance Careers
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/business-casual-attire-2061335

Succeeding at the BYU STEM Fair

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Prepare beforehand

  • Prepare an “elevator pitch”, i.e., a 30-second introduction that is memorable and to-the-point
  • Practice your elevator pitch with friends, roommates, random people on the bus, etc.
  • Prepare your resume (tips here)
    • Have someone in the career center look it over (proofread)
    • Print off 10-20 of these to give to employers
    • Remember that interviewers will likely ask you about projects/experience you’ve listed, so be familiar with what’s on there
  • Polish up your LinkedIn
  • Find something you can wear that day to look professional
  • Research some companies that will be there
  • Make a plan for when you can go and who you will visit when you’re there
  • Do some positive self-talk (or if you feel weird doing that, ask a friend to say what’s great about you)

Prioritize the companies you want to meet with

  • List the companies you want to visit from most preferred to least preferred
  • Get there early and visit your favorites first
  • If your favorite has a ridiculously long line, consider visiting booths nearby (quantity over quality principle–getting your resume to more people increases your chances)

Research companies before you meet with them

  • Google their company website and/or look them up on the BYU career fair apps
  • Ask them questions about their company! This starts a conversation, shows that you are interested, and makes you stand out from the crowd

Follow up after the career fair

  • For each person you talk to, get their contact information (email or LinkedIn) or the contact information of someone who actually has the power to hire you (if the person at the booth isn’t actually in charge of hiring, they’ll usually tell you)
  • Write a thank-you email with your resume attached (tips on writing thank-you emails here)

Here are some apps that might help

  • HandShake: lets you see which companies are going to be at the career fair and filter the companies based on your interests and location preferences
  • BYU CAREER FAIR+: lets you see which companies are going to be at the career fair, where in the Wilk they’re going to be, and when the events are all happening
  • BYU Bridge: helpful for job searches in general

…and some more helpful links

More tips? Questions? Leave a comment and I’ll update the page.