So here is the situation, you are an energetic CEO of a startup with a small but focused team – and you do not have any need to hire any more people. Why could it still be useful for you to buy a booth at a career expo?

Continuing to my earlier post, here I talk about what opportunity a career fair presents to you if you are an organization/CEO of a company, and how to go about making most of this chance.

Opportunity

1. Get to showcase your organization. This is the place where you get an equal placement with the giants of the industry, where a graduate/professional will not be scared away by the small size of your company he will actually stop by and ask questions about your work instead of asking how you will survive (which happens for startup companies in interviews)

2. Finding your place in the industry. With the huge number of companies and organizations around you will get to evaluate where you stand as an organization — what you are doing differently; who are the real competitors doing the same kind of work.

3. Network. The best place to create new relations with in the industry are conferences and expos. This is the best place because — for a limited amount of time — you are actually away from work and working as a whole (even if paying for the booth ) for the industry. We all succeed if there are more graduates willing to work in our industry, this single cause bounds every one in a relation of trust. This trust, in turn, makes a great case for networking and creating new contacts and friends.

4. Learn. Talk to the leaders who have ‘been there done that’ — this exposure for the attendant is invaluable and better than any training they can receive, ability to actually talk to the professionals is a great learning source

Guidelines

Here are few things to keep in mind while going to the fair

1. Choose the best presenters in your company. Not the best employees (there is a difference), and DEFINITELY not the people you are most comfortable with. Choose people who not only have a passion for your company, but have great charisma and can immediate capture audiences. Many times you find people standing at company booths not enthusiastic enough turning away potential employees.

It would not be a bad idea to involve some one who has been long enough in the company to discuss its growth (students/professionals are really interested), who can engage the audience in uniqeness of work you do.

2. Print brochures of your work. Give the attendees some thing to remember you by, some thing they can take home and read about(no one will do that in the fair and your banners no matter how attractive will be forgotten). Success stories are best things to create an air of excitement. Ask them to contact you if they have any queries and mean it.

3. Be genuinely interested in the attendees. Show them that you are actually there to get best the people on-board. Don’t give an impression that you are here because the company decided to have a booth, (or because Green&White pushed you to get one!)

4. Ask your employees to handle the CVs with care. While accepting CVs do show consideration to them. I have seen that — due to rush — representatives just pull the CV and dump it in a big pile in front of the attendee, giving an impression that they will never look at it again. don’t do that — have a proper file to save the CVs.

When you receive a CV, do not just write down basics like “years of experience, salary expectations” — write down something about that particular attendee that struck you as unique. Try to find something unique in everyone you meet.

Write down something that will help you remember that person later. Believe it or not but even writing “The goofy looking guy with glasses with brilliant answers” can help you recall that person. This will ensure you dont miss out on your best candidates.

After the fair take the pain of filtering through those. you have actually paid to get those CVs don’t waste them.