Q&A: A Student’s Perspective on the Modern Career Fair — and How Employers Can Stand Out

Yello connected with Tessa, a senior at the University of South Carolina, Darla Moore School of Business, to get a student’s perspective on the modern career fair. She spoke with us about how she prepared and why she was on the lookout for Yello kiosks throughout the event. Read on for insights and tips to improve your early talent recruiting experience for students at on-campus events.

The following interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

Yello: Why did you sign up for Yello? Was it excitement to try it, or it can’t hurt?

Tessa: A little of both. Honestly, the most annoying part of other career fairs I’ve been to was just waiting in line while people filled out their information. Most of the time I wasn’t talking to recruiters — I was filling out information. When I saw Yello and how much faster the process was, I was excited.

Were any of the companies you wanted to see this time ones you that you had seen previously? Or did you meet with new companies?

Because I got to meet with so many more companies this year, I connected with a lot of new ones as well.

After you got to the companies you really wanted to see, how did you decide what other companies to go to? Were you being strategic? 

Once I had already talked to the companies I really wanted to talk to, I looked around to see if other companies were interesting. If I saw the company had a Yello kiosk, I thought, yeah let’s go talk to them too. It’s not going to take too much effort and they won’t need a copy of my paper resume.

“If I saw the company had a Yello kiosk, I thought, yeah let’s go talk to them too.”

– Tessa

At past career fairs, do you remember what the response times were for employers to reach out to you afterwards? How did that compare to this year?

It depends. I think some companies want to take their time and go over everything…some have stacks of resumes to go through. After past events, the max to hear back was probably a week.

After this career fair, I did hear hear back from a few companies on the same day — that hasn’t happened in previous years. I actually was able to set up two interviews the next day. 

Were there any companies you talked to that stood out?

There was one company that I didn’t know of before — but a rep had spoken to my class before the career fair. I connected with her, told her that I loved her presentation and the rep was actually a USC grad too, so we bonded over that.

I hadn’t thought about a career selling power tools before the career fair. Now I think it sounds really fun and I’d love to sell power tools — that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

If you had friends attending a career fair for the first time, would you recommend that they sign up for Yello beforehand? 

I would absolutely tell my friends to sign up for Yello. There’s no reason not to.