Wear the “business” suit. Project a positive attitude. Do your research. There’s a lot of great information out there about how to stand out in a job market. The only problem is, we all get the same information. You can attend a Job fair, like the one held at Hope Community Church on March 19th, and meet hundreds of other people just like you. Almost everyone you meet is in a suit and tie. People are eager to contribute, with polished elevator speeches, clean resumes, and focused strategies. They are doing all the right things to stand out from the crowd, just like you.
How do you differentiate yourself? Volunteer. The Hope Job Fair was all volunteer organized and run. Volunteers helped man the tables, greet job hunters, assist the recruiters, provide security, organize the candidates and participate in general setup and take-down. Volunteers had the opportunity to assist the recruiters with their needs and establish a personal relationship before the event starts. The Hope Job Seeker leadership also organized the job fair so the volunteers have first ‘in-line’ access to the recruiters.
Wait a minute – there were dozens of volunteers. How do I differentiate myself amongst such a large group? Consider Michael Hardman’s approach in his own words:
My decision to provide security was two fold. First, it was needed and I have experience in that area. Second, I did not want to compete directly for the attention of the recruiters, especially since there was no recruiter who was dealing with the fields I am looking into. I did however have one recruiter offer to help me with my resume and another has put me in touch with a friend who is a recruiter in engineering. Not a direct success but it did provide me with contacts I did not have.
This was a great way to differentiate yourself: Don’t compete in the lineup. Don’t try and stand out among the crowd, find a way to reduce the crowd size. Find a way to make a one on one connection. Michael had time with the recruiters before the event started to establish his abilities and willingness to serve.
I encourage you to copy any or all parts of the approach that I used to try and differentiate myself at the job fair: Arrive early to help setup, and acquire a sense of where the recruiters will be and what the traffic flows are. Identify the recruiters as they arrive, and keep track of their positions so you can decide when they are soon to leave. As the lines dwindle (this can take hours), or the recruiter is packing up to leave, make your introduction. My background is in data processing and creating innovative solutions to problems using computers, so I gave the recruiters an introduction and elevator speech like:
I’m Nathan Harrington and I have experience extracting value from large sets of data. Here’s a graphic showing some data analysis of the Hope Job Seekers Bio list, which should be representative of the candidates you’ve seen here tonight. You’ve got a stack of resumes there, and probably an even larger stack back at the office. How do you differentiate the candidates? Using this graphic you can see (for example) that there is a high percentage of Technology Managers with 15+ years of experience. Analyzing data to provide real value is one of my talents – I can create search tools and algorithms to help screen your candidates, including automated googling and facebook searches so you can verify a person is who they say they are.. Please contact me if you or your clients need
help extracting business value from data.
The graphic I handed each recruiter, created from the Hope Job Seekers Bio list: (click for a readable version)
Hope Job Seekers Job Fair - The Candidates
Assumed benefits to this approach: You’re the last person the recruiter talks to, and hopefully will be fresh in their mind when they review the event. Your handout is on top of the stack they take back to the office. When they look through that stack of resumes from the job fair, your full color graphic will standout, and hopefully trigger a memory of someone with unique insight into their position. This approach shows you can think about business from someone else’s perspective, and are willing to change your modes of operation to assist others. You have provided real value to the recruiter by analyzing their candidate list – how many of the candidates give them something of value?
This sounded like a good plan at the time, and still has a great deal of differentiating power in my opinion. On the other hand, no job leads were generated, and none of the recruiters asked me to assist in their candidate screening processes. Still, I feel like this approach positively differentiated myself from the hundreds of candidates who attended the job fair. I encourage you to do the research on the recruiters, and try and find some way to provide them value outside of your resume.
