My Top 5 Career Fair Learnings

By: Antonia Le ‘22

As a senior, I’m currently in full job-search mode. When I’m not doing school work, working on my internship, or writing articles for Trojans360, I’m hunting for employment. I would love a full-time job, but honestly, I’m willing to settle for yet another internship as long as I know I can support myself for a little while after I graduate. As a result, I was one of many students who attended the USC Virtual Career Fair this past Wednesday and Thursday (September 22-23). I had never been to a USC Career Fair before (virtual or in-person), so I didn’t know when to expect. 

Virtual career fairs can be confusing when you’re first starting, so here are the top 5 things I’ve learned at the USC Career Fair.

1. Scout Booths Beforehand

USC uses a platform called Brazen to host the Virtual Career Fair. While Brazen has many benefits, it’s very hard to go through booths while the fair is going on. 

When you first enter the platform, you are led to a dashboard where you can scroll through all of the companies with booths. Many company names will be unfamiliar to the average person, but few companies give bios for themselves on the homepage. So, you have to go to each company’s specific page to learn more about them. However, you can’t open company pages in a new tab, so you have to click into them. To get back to the dashboard, you have to click the “Back” button, but Brazen doesn’t store how far you’ve scrolled, so if you’re going through booths in order of how they appear on the page, you might have to do a lot of scrolling to get back on track.

This can be a frustrating and time-consuming process. One way to avoid this is to scout booths beforehand. Brazen allows you to see which companies will be at the fair several days before the fair begins. Looking through beforehand and choosing which you want to visit will prevent you from wasting time scrolling and looking through companies that aren’t for you during the few hours the fair is happening.

2. You Don’t Need All 5 Hours

This semester, the fair lasted from 10 am-3 pm each day, and I had blocked out that exact time in my schedule for the fair. However, I found that many of the companies presenting at the career fair didn’t have roles meant for me, and I only ended up visiting a few booths each day I attended. I probably spent less than 2 hours at the career fair per day. 

If you’re thinking of attending a career fair, don’t push yourself to spend a lot of time there, talking to everyone. Having a few quality conversations will be better than burning yourself out having a conversation with everyone at every both.

3. Chats Will Come At The Worst Times 

On Brazen, if you want to talk to a representative at a booth, you can click on a button to enter a virtual line. Many times, there will be someone to chat with you right away. For more popular booths, however, you’ll have to wait until a representative is ready to talk to you. Though Brazen says it will tell you a wait time, it doesn’t, and you’ll just have to wait until a chat window pops up on your screen. This can be frustrating because it’s hard to tell how long you’ll have to wait and whether you have time to open a new tab and do homework or not. 

I ran into long lines twice, and both times, the wait ended up being so long I left my computer and went to grab water or go to the bathroom because I thought I had enough time. Both times, I came to see that the chat window had opened while I was walking around the apartment, and I had missed out on time that I could have spent talking to future employers. 

If you’re going to a virtual career fair anytime soon, try to stay at your computer if you’re waiting in any lines. You can open other tabs and do homework, but don’t leave your seat. Otherwise, you may miss out on important conversations. 

4. Be Open-Minded

When I started looking through all of the booths at the career fair, I quickly realized that a large number of them were looking for people who wanted to work in tech, finance, or consulting. Some companies didn’t fall into any of those categories, but in general, no company caught my eye as something that aligned with my career aspirations. However, I decided to be open-minded and still start conversations. 

That ended up being a good choice because I ended up learning about some great opportunities in fields I might not have otherwise ever envisioned myself entering. I had a great conversation with a recruiter from a telecommunications company about a rotational program for new graduates, and I discovered an interesting dental technology startup looking to hire people with my skillset. By being open-minded, I opened up some new doors for my future. 

5.  Be Honest

I feel like all of the career advice I’ve ever learned has boiled down to “show your PASSION for the job and the company you’re talking about”, but my positive experiences at the career fair were because I threw that. I’m not gonna say that I didn’t make myself seem a little bit more upbeat than I generally am, but in general, I tried to be honest about my intentions. When a recruiter asked me why I stopped by his booth, I told them that I was a college student who still didn’t fully know what she wanted to do in the future and wanted to just poke around. The recruiter ended up telling me about how he had been in my position as a college student, and his company’s immersion program was a great way to help him learn about different fields. Every recruiter I talked to about not knowing what to do was okay with hearing it, and they were happy to explain everything to me. 

By being honest about my intentions and my lack of knowledge, I also gave myself the freedom to ask questions I would’ve otherwise been afraid to ask, like “What does your company do?” and “What do people like about this job?”, all questions that everyone was happy to answer. Remember: people working at career fair booths want you to like them and their company as much as you want them to like you. As a result, they’ll generally be pretty nice. 

At the end of the day, career fairs are a way to make a good impression on a possible future employer, and one way to do that is to be honest about who you are and what you want. 

Conclusion

Going to a career fair for the first time may seem intimidating but there’s no reason to stress out because people are generally understanding. If you remember my 5 tips, you’ll be sure to make the most of the next USC career fair. 

Stock photos courtesy of Unsplash. 

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