Send thank-you/follow-up emails. If you spoke with employers at the Career Fair, odds are they gave you their business card - with an email address on it. Be sure to follow-up any conversation with a brief and professional thank you email. The Career Center has some tips on their website (see the "After the Interview" section at the bottom of the page) for writing thank-you emails, but the best advice in my opinion is to be prompt and specific. A good rule of thumb is to reply within 24 hours of your meeting, and be sure to mention specific details from your conversation. Taken together, these steps will increase the probability of leaving a lasting impression in the employer's mind, so that when applications come around, they're more likely to remember you for more than just your awesomely bright tie (a comment I actually got from an employer at the 2014 Fall Career Fair - sadly, it wasn't even my tie).
EXTRA TIP: Attach a pdf of your resume to the thank-you email. This will ensure that the employer receives a copy even if he loses your printed copy from the Career Fair.
EXTRA TIP: Attach a pdf of your resume to the thank-you email. This will ensure that the employer receives a copy even if he loses your printed copy from the Career Fair.
Keep up the momentum. Don't just stop at one follow-up email. Send another email a few weeks later about an interesting article in your and the employer's field, or check in to reiterate your interest in working for their company. Repeated interaction will definitely lead to a better professional relationship, and it won't hurt that afore mentioned lasting impression you want to make. However, being enthusiastic is very different from being overly persistent. Be sure not to send too many emails, or you may come off too strong.
Keep records and stay organized. A good way to prevent yourself from sending too many emails is to keep frequently-updated records of all your encounters with different employers. I'm a big fan of the Excel spreadsheet; keep a column for the employer/contact's name, the dates of your correspondance, and next steps to be taken (submit an application, follow-up on an interview, etc). This will also prevent any name mix-ups or other blunders on your part.
Start getting serious about summer plans. The Spring Career Fair, in my opinion, provides a perfectly-timed wakeup-call for Tufts students across campus to start arranging their summer plans. While many of us might not need this extra push (shout-out to the proactive Jumbos out there, I have no idea how you're real), for most of us the Career Fair jumpstarts us into thinking critically about summer internships and, more broadly, our careers and post-graduation plans. Follow-up after the Career Fair can be for yourself as well as for your new network contacts. Make an appointment with a Career Advisor, browse our website or Jumbo Jobs, and get that ball rolling if you haven't already.
This post makes it sound like a lot of work has to go into your Career Fair experience after the Career Fair itself ends. While it's true that you shouldn't put the Career Fair out of your mind once it's over, you don't have to become wholly devoted to follow-up networking. Take little steps at a time - an email here, a 15-minute organizing session there - and it won't feel like some big, intimidating task that requires so much from you. The next baby step you take could lead you to an internship, or even the career, of your dreams.
Until next time,
Sean Boyden
Class of 2017
Start getting serious about summer plans. The Spring Career Fair, in my opinion, provides a perfectly-timed wakeup-call for Tufts students across campus to start arranging their summer plans. While many of us might not need this extra push (shout-out to the proactive Jumbos out there, I have no idea how you're real), for most of us the Career Fair jumpstarts us into thinking critically about summer internships and, more broadly, our careers and post-graduation plans. Follow-up after the Career Fair can be for yourself as well as for your new network contacts. Make an appointment with a Career Advisor, browse our website or Jumbo Jobs, and get that ball rolling if you haven't already.
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| This doesn't have to be you. Come to the Career Center. (For some reason no one likes any of the slogans I propose.) (Source) |
This post makes it sound like a lot of work has to go into your Career Fair experience after the Career Fair itself ends. While it's true that you shouldn't put the Career Fair out of your mind once it's over, you don't have to become wholly devoted to follow-up networking. Take little steps at a time - an email here, a 15-minute organizing session there - and it won't feel like some big, intimidating task that requires so much from you. The next baby step you take could lead you to an internship, or even the career, of your dreams.
Until next time,
Sean Boyden
Class of 2017
