How Can ChEs Get the Most out of Career Fairs?

Loraine Kasprzak

Managing Director
Advantage Marketing Consulting Services


Loraine Kasprzak, Advantage Marketing’s Founder and Managing Director, is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC),  MBA and ChemE with over 17 years of hands-on experience in marketing communications and strategy. One of Loraine’s strengths is her ability to help her clients clarify their thinking so that they can focus and fine-tune their message for the marketplace.

Prior to beginning her management consulting career in 1995, Loraine worked for 12 years in corporate America, advancing through various engineering, marketing and management roles. She started as an R&D engineer at Hercules Chemical Company, Wilmington, DE, then joined Con Edison’s Management Intern Program, and worked in the company's R&D department.

Loraine rounded out her corporate career at BOC Gases, Murray Hill, NJ, where she held commercial development, product management, business planning, and marketing services positions.

As a consultant, Loraine has facilitated the strategic development and implementation of communications programs for a variety of professional service and small business clients, including engineering and environmental firms, healthcare and information technology companies, and startups.

Her clients have included Aujas Networks, the Entech Group, MXI Environmental Services, Monarch Electric, and Quest Diagnostics.

Loraine served on the Social Media Committee and was National Marketing Chair for the Institute of Management Consultants USA (IMC USA), as well as executive editor for IMC USA's monthly Connector newsletter. She has also served as vice president of public relations as well as a board member and certification chair for the IMC New Jersey chapter. She received IMC’s 2009 Distinguished Service Award for continuous outstanding service.

Loraine blogs at The Marketing Advantage is a frequent public speaker. She has authored a social media for professionals article series  for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Chemical Engineering Progress magazine and now writes CEP's Career Corner column.

She has presented talks on social media, marketing and branding at regional and local business conferences and was a guest lecturer for the Prudential Young Entrepreneurs Program. Loraine was a business columnist for Union County Voice magazine and has written for the Princeton Packet Business Journal.

Loraine holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Manhattan College and an MBA in Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

http://advantage-marketingblog.com/

Career or job fairs can be a great way to explore employment opportunities and learn about companies who are actively hiring chemical engineers.

For the February CEP Career Corner column, I'm writing about how ChEs can get the most out of a career fair.

Have career or job fairs been part of your job search strategy? I want to hear about it:

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  • Which career fair did you attend?
  • Did the fair help you land a job?
  • Which career fairs are worthwhile for ChEs to attend?
  • What advice would you give others who are interested in attending one? What should they do before, during, and after a fair?

When you comment, please be sure to include your full name, city and state in your post, so that I can quote you in the article. Thank you!

Please share your career fair advice and experiences below.

Comments

Submitted by Sarah Ewing (not verified) on Thu, 12/19/2013 - 10:07

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Lorianne: I recently attended a career fair even though I currently have a job. I was mainly attending because i had not attended one since I was an undergrad, and I wanted to try out my "elevator speech" now that I have some experience and confidence under my belt. Man, what a difference it made when i was able to walk up and confidently say who I am, what I do and what I am looking for in my career. It was a huge confidence boost, and very informative to see the different opportunities out there. I used a lot of my experience for material for my networking workshop I gave at the 2013 Annual Student Conference in San Francisco. Love this topic for CEP. Would love to talk more with you on this. Sarah Ewing, Philadelphia, PA sarah.ewing1@gmail.com

Submitted by EngFacts (not verified) on Sat, 12/21/2013 - 23:16

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Unfortunately the last career fairs I attended were all when I was undergrad and the main focus of the recruiters seemed to be GPA. It was always presented up front. Since graduating, all my job changes have been from networking, including the first one right out of school.

Submitted by advantagemarketing (not verified) on Mon, 12/30/2013 - 09:24

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Thanks Sarah and EngFacts for your comments. Sarah, besides boosting your confidence, did having a better elevator speech at the Fair get you interviews? I think GPA is always going to be important as a screening tool at Career Fairs. Knowing someone or getting connected through networking can help get you past that initial screen of GPA.

Submitted by advantagemarketing (not verified) on Mon, 12/30/2013 - 09:25

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Which Career Fairs are useful for ChemE's to attend?

Submitted by Sarah Ewing (not verified) on Mon, 12/30/2013 - 09:54

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Yes, i think having the elevator speech was VERY useful. Before I would just walk up to recruiters and hand my resume and wait for them to ask me questions. Now that i have more confidence and knowledge of what I want, I would walk up and immediately tell them who I was, wat my strongest skill sets were and what I was looking for in my career. I was amazed how many more interview offers i recieved just by doing this. I also definitely agree that for undergrads with no experience, GPA is a big factor used by recruiters to screen out candidates, but if you get a contact at the company and network your way in/get a good recommendation, you definitely have a better shot.

Submitted by advantagemarketing (not verified) on Thu, 01/02/2014 - 08:26

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Great insight, Sarah. Thank you.