Career Fair Success

Are you looking for a simple step to career fair success? Writing a career fair cover letter is one extremely simple way to make yourself stand out from the crowds at career fairs. However, it's a tactic that should be used only for your top rated employers at career fairs.

Keep in mind, you will not be expected to provide a cover letter for every employer you meet at a career fair, nor should you try to do so. It would be impossible to write a personalized career fair cover letter for each employer (you'd be exhausted before you even got to the job fair!), and a form letter does nothing to develop rapport with an employer.

However, before you go to the career fair, do some research to determine which employers will be there, and note any that are of particular interest to you. For those few, top rated employers, it can be well worth your time to write a targeted cover letter focused on their specific needs.

Some people will advise you that you should never write a cover letter for a career fair. They will tell you that a cover letter serves as an introduction, and you will be able to do that in person at the career fair. When it comes to your top rated employers at a career fair, I would tend to disagree.

While you will get a chance to introduce yourself to employers at the career fair, it may be an extremely brief conversation, and the employer will likely meet hundreds of people in a day. Your targeted cover letter, if it's written well, will help the hiring managers at your top rated companies to remember you after the career fair when they are pouring through stacks of applications and trying to remember all of the people they met.

A few key tips to remember about career fair success and writing a career fair cover letter:

• Do some research to determine which employers will be attending the job fair. Determine your tops rated employers at the career fair, and only write cover letters for those employers.
  
• Before you go to the career fair, visit the websites for your top rated employers to research the companies and write targeted cover letters that are focused on each company's specific needs.
  
• In order for your career fair cover letter to have the desired impact, you must ensure that it is clearly not a form letter type of cover letter.

The key to career fair success is to find appropriate, professional ways to stand out from the crowd. Few if any job seekers will write a cover letter for a job fair, particularly one that's specifically targeted for a particular employer. It's an easy way to stand out from the crowd and show your top rated employers that you're the kind of person who will go the extra mile to get the job done.