Five steps to ace your next career fair Five steps to ace your next career fair

The all majors career fair is on September 30 this year. In preparation we compiled five things you need to do before you step foot in Student Center South, or show up on Cougar Pathway.

By McKenzie Misiaszek

The University of Houston Career Services office hosts multiple career fairs a year. From major and college specific, to an all majors fair, dozens of employers show up looking for new hires and students who could intern for their companies.

If you have never been to a career fair, the prospect might seem overwhelming. That’s why we broke down the top five things to know for your next career fair, whether it be virtual or in person.

Dress professionally

The recommended attire for all career fairs, in person or online, is business professional. This means that suits should be long-sleeved in black, gray or navy, and your suit jacket should match your bottoms, and yes you should still wear professional bottoms over Zoom. If you are wearing a skirt it should reach your knees. Your shirt should be white or a lighter color and if you wear a tie it should be solid colored and not distracting.

Your shoes should have a heel less than two inches and be a neutral color, or for men be polished leather with dark socks. If you choose to wear jewelry it should be simple and conservative. Your bag should be a small purse or another professional bag, and you should also have a portfolio to carry your resumes.

Bring or upload resumes

If you don’t have a resume printed out (or uploaded to Cougar Pathway for virtual career fairs) you can’t hand anything to your potential employers. Make sure you print out at least a dozen resumes. It is always better to have some left over rather than run out. You can print them on campus in the library quite easily.

Make sure you have something to carry your resumes in. It looks bad to hand someone a resume that has been crinkled. If you’ve seen the scene in Legally Blonde, Elle always had her resumes in a nice portfolio. Be like Elle Woods.

Practice your interviewing skills

This one may feel a little silly, but making sure you aren’t stumbling over your words or generally awkward during your meeting with employers is an important step to a good first impression. Networking is real.

Career Services offers multiple worksheets that list common interview questions so you can have your answers ready. Make sure you know what you’re going to say if someone asks you to “tell me about yourself.”

Rsvp

Make sure you RSVP for the fair in Cougar Pathway and have your resume uploaded to the website as well. Career Services reviews every resume uploaded into Cougar Pathway, so give yourself enough time to make any changes before your career event. This is an important step so you can get into these career fairs in the first place.

Research the employers

Do not go in blind. Make sure you look at the list of companies that are going to be at the fair. Make a list of the ones you want to talk to and make sure you know what the companies do, what you like about them and what positions they have open that you are interested in. This gives you something to actually talk about with those at the career fair.

Your major is pretty minor

Your major is pretty minor

Just because you graduated with a major in one field, doesn’t mean you have to work in that field for the rest of your life, or ever if you don’t want to.

Just because you graduated with a major in one field, doesn’t mean you have to work in that field for the rest of your life, or ever if you don’t want to.

By Sofia Gonzalez

By Sofia Gonzalez

Graduating from college is hard. It’s the start of the rest of your life. Students don’t always have a job set up for them right out of college. The job search is hard, and most students don’t end up with a job in their major.

Former University of Houston student, Daniela Machado, knows about this all too well.

Machado originally graduated with a broadcast journalism degree, and said she thought that news was her passion.

“I always thought of myself as the type of person that would be in front of a camera talking about news,” Machado said. “Ever since I was really young, I always loved being in front of the camera. I love news. I loved watching it happen on TV and acting like I was doing it too. It was something that I grew up always looking up to, and it was definitely like a passion that I wanted to fulfill.”

However, after beginning her degree, she soon realized that maybe journalism wasn’t what she wanted to pursue. During her time at UH, Machado realized that her classes were teaching her hard news, but her passion was with lifestyle and entertainment.

“Even though there’s a huge lifestyle journalism community out there, I feel like I didn’t learn much about that side of journalism,” Machado said. “I feel like that’s why I kind of started stepping away from wanting to do that in the future.”

It was at this moment in time when Machado began to look into her minor. After careful consideration, she chose retail and consumer science.

“I kind of went through a list of minors that I could graduate with,” Machado said. “And I was like, oh, Retail and Consumer Science, that’s so me; I would totally love that. I would love to learn what the stores specifically do to communicate to the customer, certain messages. Certain seasons have certain colors and what attracts a customer into the store or attracts a customer onto your website.”

However, despite this, Machado still wanted to use her major after graduation, just not with journalism. She said that being a communications major, she thought she could expand her job search.

Unfortunately due to COVID-19, she never found internships, and because of the experience levels jobs were asking for, she was limited on the jobs she could apply for that fell within the communication realm. Machado applied to jobs such as social media managers and digital marketing. She never received offers for any of these jobs. It was at this point that she knew she had to stray from her major and go back to her minor.

Machado said that this terrified her. All her classmates were getting amazing jobs while she was afraid of looking like a failure, but she knew that she had to do what made her happy.

“I’m not living life for anybody else,” Machado said. “I like my minor, I really do. You can’t just start at the top. Most people don’t start at the top.”

After months of searching for a job, Machado accepted a position as sales associate at Free People. She knows that this is the bottom position for her minor, but still, she’s happy to accept it.

Machado says that she can still apply things she learned in school to this position, and that by accepting this position, she is getting to mix her love for fashion and communication. She says that her minor taught her how to style the mannequins, keep customers happy, and how to make a store welcoming. Whereas with her major, she learned how to talk to people.

Although she didn’t get the conventional office job out of college, Machado is still happy with her choice, and she hopes that she can grow with the company.

“The goal is to get up there at some point,” Machado said. “And maybe 10 years from now, I have so much experience that I’ve grown with the company from the very bottom that I’m knowledgeable enough to get a marketing or advertising job with their corporate office. That’s the goal.”

As for those students who may find themselves in the same boat as Machado, she wants them to know that it’s OK to not achieve all the goals you may have set for yourself at the beginning of college.

“I feel like the best thing to do is just live life,” Machado said. “Try your best to be happy every day with everything that you do, and be the most sincere version of yourself you can be.”