The follow-up after virtual career fairs — Jessica’s Career Tip of the Week

The career fair is over and, for the most part, it can feel like your job/internship search is over too. You’ve applied to positions before the career fair, distributed your resume and just have to wait for responses now, right? Wrong! In this blog, I’ll go over some actions you can take to follow-up on your virtual experience and capitalize on upcoming opportunities.

To start with, the Fulton Schools Undergraduate Career Fair is not the only job/internship fair ASU offers! For example, we still have the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment Civil and Environmental Engineering Career Fair on Wednesday, September 23, 2020–Thursday, September 24, 2020, the ASU Fall Career and Internship Expo on Tuesday, September 29, 2020–Thursday, October 1, 2020, and the Fulton Schools Engineering Diversity and Affinity Groups Career Fair on Friday, October 2, 2020. Furthermore, professional clubs or organizations such as IEEE, SHPE, SWE and SASE will likely host their own fairs virtually later this year too; the online platform is a great opportunity for you to attend since the only travel necessary is to your computer! As you can see, there’s still a variety of routes to interact with recruiters personally.

Additionally, remember to continue applying to positions! Job opportunities will still be posted on Handshake and the company’s website for weeks after the career fair, so you have time to create those personalized resumes and possibly cover letters. Hiring will also continue into the spring semester (albeit with a small decrease in November/December), which means your search should be year-round rather than biannual. Continue reviewing positions and continue applying to them!

Now that we’ve talked about future opportunities to watch out for, let’s turn our attention back to your experience from the Fulton Schools Undergraduate Career Fair. As a consequence of the virtual platform, you were able to see the names of all the company representatives who attended the fair and possibly learned about their roles in your one-on-one chats. Try to keep the conversation going by reaching out to them on LinkedIn; almost every professional has a profile, so you should be able to find the representative. Send a connection request with a personal message reminding the professional of how you met them (at the ASU Career Fair) and a specific request (learning about their position, another person you can contact for more information, etc.) Furthermore, you don’t have to connect with only the representatives at our career fair either! You can reach out to hiring managers for the company of interest with a brief, professional introduction. This can be nerve-wracking for some, but as long as you present yourself professionally, the worst that can happen is receiving a polite decline. Expanding your network is a vital aspect of the job/internship hunt, and should also be done year-round.

**This blog was written by Peer Career Coach, Keene Patarakun