Last week I asked the following question on LinkedIn:

What advice would you give to someone who will be attending their very first job fair?

Many unemployed workers are finding themselves in the job market for the first time in many years. Some have never been in the job market before. What advice would you give to such a job seeker? I’m looking for help in setting expectations, etc. This is also going to be for a blog post at http://getthatjobonline.com and will immediately go out to some local folks who will attend a job fair in the coming weeks. Thanks for your help!

I am glad that I received so many responses, and you should definitely check out what others have said, since the advice is too numerous to include in this post.  One of the many noteworthy responses came from Doug Field, who is a training manager, course developer, and instructor in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area:

Rent a copy of Hello, Dolly! starring Barbra Streisand as Dolly Levi; watch the first 10 minutes several times and pay particular attention to how Dolly treats everyone she meets as a potential employer or source of work.

I did some research on YouTube and Wikipedia to see if I could find a short video clip to illustrate what Doug was talking about, and this is the closest thing I found. I’m not sure whether this is what he’s talking about or not. The song is “Call on Dolly” from the musical “Hello, Dolly“:

Anything more to add? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

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I had just finished some browsing for some positions at the local paper’s website, and I clicked the link in their sidebar that says “Off the Clock”. It turns out to be a list of upcoming Career Fairs, etc. in the Dayton area.

Hmm.

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3. Somehow You Got Here, the GTJ! Version

I attended a job fair at the Dayton Job Center this past Wednesday, April 30, 2003. I’ve spent a lot more time at the Job Center lately, searching for a job and getting set up with other services. Last fall, I attended another job fair at the Job Center as well.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I knew from attending the job fair last fall that there were sure to be a lot of people there. I also expected that there would be a lot of organizations looking for people in the health care fields. Both of these expectations were met.

I felt that there were so many people at the job fair that it was hard to be in a one-on-one conversation with any recruiter for very long. I noticed a long line of people waiting to talk to recruiters from one company in particular.

Since my wife Jennie has been ill lately and was not able to attend the job fair, I used the opportunity to network a little bit with the health care companies that were looking for nurses asisstants.

I also went to see which companies would be looking for people in my field. I saw a few of them. Yet, when I talked to company representatives in person, their recommendation was still to send my resume via the company’s website or via email.

I still wonder why these companies were present at the job fair at all if they were just going to ask me to send my resume to the company electronically.

As I left the job fair, I was encouraged to chat with another job seeker who was looking for a job in accounting. We used the opportunity to network and share our thoughts on the job fair.

I still believe that job fairs are great ways to meet companies and network with other job seekers, and I look forward to attending others in the future.

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I have a job hunting success story to share. In September I attended a couple Job Fairs, one at the Dayton Convention Center and one at the Dayton Job Center. I cannot remember exactly which one it was, but I left my resume with the folks from Manpower Professional.

This past Wednesday I received a phone call about an opportunity with Lexis Nexis, doing some Excel VBA work, for which it sounds like I’m aptly qualified. I start working there tomorrow!

The assignment will last about one month, but hopefully I can extend my time there and use this opportunity as a springboard into something more permanent, especially once I see how things are going inside the company. I keep getting emails stating that they have a number of open positions, and I even applied for a couple.

Now, let’s hear some of your job hunting success stories!

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