Recently, I was lucky enough to attend my first career fair with netlogx and Nick Petrone. Of course, I’ve attended many career fairs on my own, but never have I had the opportunity to be with a company scouting prospective students, so I was very excited to attend and get the opportunity to speak with students. This particular career fair was held at Purdue University in West Lafayette and was called the Emerging Employers Career Fair.
Our day started at 11:00 a.m. in the Purdue Memorial Union with a luncheon and panel discussion provided by the university. The panel was titled “Beyond Emergence: Tips for Hiring Success,” which centered on companies recruiting from colleges and universities. The panel discussion was incredibly insightful with the varied panel speakers to the vendors engaging in an exciting Q&A. Nick and I agreed the luncheon and panel discussion was a major success – Purdue even had the Purdue “P” branded in our sandwiches!
After lunch, the vendors were shown to their booths, and so my adventure with Nick began. We set up our booth with netlogx paraphernalia and prepared to meet with the eager students that awaited. As I waited for the students to begin arriving at 1:00 p.m., I found myself getting nervous! After all, I wasn’t a student with a resumé attempting to engage in an impromptu interview! I discovered that I was likely just as nervous as the prospective students were because I had never been on the vendor side of a career fair before nor have I ever conducted an “interview” before. As the students began filing in, I decided my best plan of action was to observe Nick and mimic his conversations. I quickly jumped into conversation with another student and my nerves instantly disappeared. As I spoke with each student, I found they were highly prepared with resumés in hand and answers to questions I had in my head. I found that conversation came naturally as the students and I were equally interested in the other; and I had done my job, which was to provide valuable information about netlogx while engaging with prospective interns and employees.
At the end of the day, I was very happy and fortunate that I got to see another side of business at netlogx, while getting to spend the day outside of the office! Attending the Emerging Employers Career Fair at Purdue University was definitely a success and a great opportunity to learn about outreach and networking.
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