The Office of Career Services hosts Career Fairs throughout the academic year in Fall and Spring semesters. These fairs serve as an opportunity to connect students with employers from various industries/career paths, to build their network, to gain valuable experiences and skills, provide opportunities towards enhancing your career development and to further explore career options.
For this assignment, students are expected to reflect upon their experiences by describing the event, sharing their perspectives and thoughts in attending the fair, and next steps they will take to continue enhancing their professional and career development. Students will be expected to initiate conservations will at least three employers about career opportunities. You will be required to write a one page minimum up to a two-page double-spaced reflection essay summarizing your experience. To further expand your knowledge, you will summarize what you have learned by reflecting upon the essay prompts listed below.
NOTE: Please ensure you are providing thorough and detailed responses when reflecting upon the essay prompts.
Essay Prompts:
1.What were your feelings when entering the Career Fair? What did you feel confident or nervous about?
2.Which companies did you approach for conversations? Why?
3.Describe how your conversations went with the employers you met:
• What went well, what did not go well and why (if applicable what did you learn from this experience and what would you do differently next time?)
• What types of questions did you develop, share information about the companies you spoke (i.e. What were the different types of opportunities that the employers discussed?)
• Were these opportunities interesting to you? Did they match your interests and/or career goals? Why?
4.What would you do differently when attending your next career fair? How would you prepare?
5.How do you feel attending the career fair will impact how you think about the job/internship search?
6.What are your next steps? What will you do to follow through on your contacts from the fair?
Career Fair Assignment
Successful career tips to prepare and stand out:
• Research the organization prior to attending the fair to enhance your knowledge about the organization.
• Practice your elevator speech by reviewing the Elevator Speech PDF document located in the Resources, Guides, and Handout Section from the Career Services Website.
• Revise your resume before attending the fair and consider bringing extra copies to present to recruiters.
• Develop questions to ask prospective recruiters during the fair. Please reference questions below to help you brainstorm as you create your own set of questions:
o What internships/career opportunities are available in your organization?
o What are the key skills and experiences most desirable by your organization?
o Can you describe the company’s management style and the type of employee who fits well with it?
o What do you like best about your organization/company?
o What is the application process for this position?
Career Fair Rubric(10pts)
Career Fair Rubric (10 pts)
CRITERIA
Reflection and Integration of Essay Questions
-Describes significant indepth details and thoughtful insights from your experience in attending the fair
-Demonstrates a clear understanding of the learning experiences they have gained from the career fair
-Content shows a thorough understanding of their learning and experience by answering all the essay questions with in-depth responses
SCORE: 7 6 5
Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation
SCORE 3 2 1
-Error-free spelling
-Error-free punctuation
-Grammar is appropriate
-Uses a professional tone throughout the essay
-Essay content is relevant and appropriate to the topic
-Includes to some degree minimal details and/or lacks adequate detail describing insights from your experience in attending the fair
-Provides slight connections or somewhat articulate their described experiences and/or minimally connect the learning experiences they have gained from the career fair
-Content shows a minimal/moderate understanding of their learning and experience by partially answering some of the essay questions
Contains minor errors (grammar, punctation, and/or spelling)
-Essay content uses a professional tone to some degree but may be inconsistent throughout essay
-Essay content to some degree is relevant and appropriate to the topic but may be inconsistent throughout essay
-Does not include any relevant thoughtful details and/or provides vague insights from your experience in attending the fair
-Does not clearly connect the described experiences and/or any learning that might have taken place from the career fair
-Content shows no effort of a thoughtful understanding of their learning and experience by not answering any and/or vaguely answering the essay questions
