Stellenwerk Job Fair

A job fair offers you the opportunity to make important new company contacts for your professional future. Good preparation for the trade fair is therefore important and recommended. These are our recommendations for a successful preparation.

Answer yourself these questions:

• Where do you want to go?
• Which professional fields are you interested in?
• Which industries are your target fields?
• Find out beforehand about the companies and organizations of your interest.

Before the fair, gather information about:

• Products and business lines
• Philosophy and goals
• Target groups
• Locations

Prepare yourself for possible conversations and questions at the company stand:

• What technical know-how and special skills and strengths do you have?
• What characterizes your dealings with other people (social skills)?
• How do you structure and manage tasks (methodical competence)?
• Do you have the ability to lead people and to delegate tasks to your employees in a meaningful and understandable way (leadership skills)?
• Have a short profile of your application documents ready

Choose the right clothes for a self-confident appearance:

• Dress so that you feel comfortable!
• Find out about industry standard clothing style

About the application process:

• When is the right time to apply?
• Is it possible to apply even though not all grades are known yet?
• What is expected of form and content?
• What is the weight of grades?
• How specifically should desired areas of application be named?
• What do companies consider particularly important when applying?
• How long does it take to get an answer?
• Where and with whom do you apply?
• What makes an application "interesting" compared to others?

Towards the vacancy:

• What does a typical working day look like in the position?
• "Typical" professional development in the first 3-5 years? Medium-term prospects?
• What should you be particularly good at in this role?
• What professional and personal requirements are absolutely necessary?
• Specialist or managerial position in 5 years?
• What "weaknesses" should an applicant for the position in question not have?
• Medium or very large company? Both have advantages: ask.
• Salary/salary development? (Should not have priority!)

For an internship or thesis:

• How long in advance to apply?
• How specific should the applicant's ideas be?
• How and by whom?
• Internship abroad possible (only about 5% of all companies offer this)?
• Remuneration for internship/examination work

Ask open-ended questions, not closed ones. Maintain eye contact. Let your counterpart finish, but ask if your question is not answered. Also ask a company representative why he or she is with this company or your counterpart, why you should apply to this company and what advantages you would have from it.

Source: Verein für Hochschulkontakte e.V.