Do Your Research

Find out what companies will be attending the event, and then check out their websites and LinkedIn pages to learn about what they do and what types of openings they have. This will help you prioritize your time to ensure that you can get some face time with the companies that you are most interested in. Employers will be impressed that you have done your homework, and since you will have an idea of what they are looking for, you will be in a better position to discuss why you are a strong candidate. 

Update Your Resume

Read through your resume carefully. Make sure that it is up-to-date, lists accurate contact information, includes any new skills or proficiencies, and is free of typos. Think about the type of work you’re looking for, and make sure that the information you’ve highlighted speaks to that. Once you’re satisfied that the resume reflects your most relevant skills and experience, print copies to bring with you to the job fair. If you have a variety of skillsets, don’t be afraid to bring a couple different versions of your resume. 

Practice Introducing Yourself

Brainstorm a short (but memorable) introduction that captures who you are as a candidate. A great elevator pitch is usually no more than 30-45 seconds. Think about your key strengths, your level of experience, and how you could best present these skills to spark the interest of a potential employer. Once you have an idea of what you want to say, practice it with a friend. Don’t overdo it though – you want to come across as professional and personable, but too much practice may leave you sounding rehearsed. 

Treat it Like a Job Interview

Dress like you would for a job interview, and treat all of your interactions like a job interview. With so much activity happening around you, and so many people present, it can be hard to tell who is a hiring manager. You only have one chance to make a great first impression, so smile, be polite, and be engaged in all of your interactions – whether they are in the parking lot, coffee area, or the event space itself. It is okay to attend a job fair with others, but remember that once you get there, it is strictly business. 

Ask Questions

When you’re speaking with a hiring manager, don’t forget that it is an opportunity for you to gather information and develop a stronger sense of whether you could see yourself at this company. Asking questions helps show that you are interested, and gives the employer a chance to share information that you may not have been able to find elsewhere. If you end up going through the company’s hiring process, what you learn today may help give you a competitive edge in your future interview, so listen carefully.  

Follow Through

If you promised an employer a phone call, email, or online application, be sure to follow through with those actions in a timely manner. Doing so shows that you are dependable, respectful of their time, and serious about the position discussed. If they’ve asked you to take any of these additional steps, it means they see potential in you as a candidate, so there is no better time to explore your options with them. This is a good lead, so don’t miss out on a chance to see what opportunities might await you. 

Register Early On

Often times you can receive a number of added bonuses by committing early. One benefit of registering early can be prime booth placement, because we all know, location matters. Another added benefit may be the inclusion of your company name or job openings in pre-event advertising. 

Work The Floor

It is ideal for you to staff your booth with at least two representatives. This way you can have one person walking the floor and one working the booth. Not only might this help you identify potential candidates, but by walking the floor you can get some competitive intel. 

Grab Their Attention

Your booth space should be professional, clean, and well-organized. The biggest draw to your booth is going to be the people who are working it. Are they standing up and engaging people as they walk by? Or are they sitting behind a laptop looking too busy to talk?

Send The Best

Be sure to send company representatives who not only will be an accurate reflection of your brand, but most importantly are able to answer common questions about your company, what it’s like to work there, and provide information on the application process. 

Capture The Interaction

Make it easy for a candidate to officially express interest in your company. Whether you have a simple paper form for them to fill out or a tablet to gather information, this will become a great post-event resource for you. If you have time, review the information with them right then and there. 

Always Follow Up

Follow up with everyone, even if you aren’t confident you have a position available for them today. Recruiting is all about relationship building and providing applicants with a positive experience. A follow-up doesn’t have to be a complicated process it could be as simple as an email or text.

What Can an Average Day Look Like?

While job descriptions offer an overview of the requirements of the position, what you envision when your read the job description may not represent the whole picture. The best way to get and understanding of what the job really looks like is to ask. Most jobs require balancing multiple priorities throughout the shift. If there are specific tasks that were what most attracted you to the job, it is better to find out early if they are only periodic responsibilities. 

How Can I Be Successful In This Role?

Learning what skills or traits are most vital to success serves two functions; it helps you evaluate how happy and successful your would feel in the position based on what your know about yourself, and, if offered the position, helps you excel by clarifying priorities and expectations from day one. The response to this question can be very telling and may be just the information you need to feel confident in your decision to pursue (or pass) on the job. 

What Does the Training Entail?

Is it an intensive formal process, or will you be expected to ‘hit the ground running’ from day one? Asking this question will help you understand what the company would expect of you starting out, and help you determine if you will have the tools you need to succeed. An entry-level worker may appreciate a longer training period, but someone with more proven experience in the field may find it repetitive. 

What Is The Company Culture Like?

Will you be working collaboratively with a close-knit team, or can you expect a high level of autonomy? Aside from job duties, your overall job satisfaction will also be greatly influenced by how well your work style, personality, and career goals align with those of the organization. Your work week will feel unnecessarily long and stressful if the company culture isn’t a fit, so it is an important factor to consider. 

Why Do You Like Working Here?

This question can help you learn things about the company and its culture that may not have otherwise been disclosed. Does the company promote from within? Do they support local community programs? Hearing about the things that make the company great from someone that currently works there will make it easier for you to picture yourself in that environment, and get a sense of how you would feel there. 

What Are The Next Steps?

And what is the company’s timeline for those steps? This will help you be realistic on when you should expect to hear back from them and quite possibly even get a little insight on how you did in the interview. The days (and weeks) following an interview can leave you agonizing over when or if they will call, and stressing over what it means if you haven’t heard from them yet. The best way to relieve that stress is to simply ask. 

Look and Act Professional

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This is just as true for you as it is for the candidates applying. From the moment they walk in the door, strong candidates are starting to analyze everything about your company. They will be observing the professionalism and cleanliness of your space. They will be gauging your company by the interactions they have with other team members. Be sure to set the tone for a positive experience with your team. 

Make It Easy for Them to Talk

Even for the most confident of candidates, interviews can be stressful. It is up to you to make the candidate feel welcome. Starting the conversation with a little casual small talk will help ease a candidate’s nerves and start the rapport building process. It is important to keep in mind that occasionally the best person for the job is also sometimes the one with the worst interview skills. Show them you are easy to talk with, and the conversation will flow. 

Give Them Your Attention

Turn off your distractions. This could be your email, your office phone, and yes – your cell phone too. It is crucial to show candidates that you are respecting their time just as much as you want them to respect yours. In the off case you can’t turn off your distractions, letting a candidate know ahead of time will go a long way to show them you do see them as a priority. While all interviews should be genuine conversations, be sure to keep focused on the questions you prepared. 

Prepare Ahead of Time

Take time before the interview to review the candidate’s resume and cover letter. You may also find that reviewing the job description at the same time will help you compare strengths and weaknesses in the resume, allowing you to hone in on the most important questions to ask. Making notes or highlights on the resume will also demonstrate to the candidate that you are taking this process, and them as a candidate, seriously. 

Take Notes

No matter how good you think your memory is, taking notes is essential. Chances are, you are interviewing multiple candidates, and notes will help you accurately recall what a candidate said or how they reacted to certain questions. While you will probably be left with a gut reaction, and certain candidates may stand out in your mind for various reasons, these notes will allow you to focus on what was said and evaluate candidates on the meat of the conversation versus the feeling you got from them. 

Probe For Details

Some candidates may not be as descriptive as others. The best interview questions are open ended and encourage the candidate to tell a story versus giving a simple answer. The thing to keep in mind is that open ended questions also most often require candidates to pause, reflect, and then answer. Be sure to give them the opportunity to do that. When all else fails and you want more information on a certain topic, just ask “Can you tell me a little more about that?”

Know Yourself

It’s important to start with a good understanding of who you are and what you want. While getting your resume out there to a variety of employers is part of a successful job search, you also need to focus your search to increase the chances of securing an interview and avoid spreading yourself too thin. This process starts with carefully taking inventory of your skills, experience, and short and long term goals.

Think Beyond The Job Title

What do you really value when it comes to the world of work? It’s a simple enough question to ask yourself, but the answer can be very telling and help guide your job search in a direction that is more conducive to your goals. A job with a highly demanding schedule may initially catch your eye if it entails a pay increase, but if work/life balance is a top priority for your right now, you may find that something else is more compatible.

Research Different Options

Start researching different career options and get an idea of what is available in your area. What industries seem to have the most opportunities? What are average wages in your area? Exploring a variety of options may help you uncover hidden passions and develop a sense of what careers can realistically be pursued in your local job market. 

Register With a Staffing Firm

When you apply for a position with one company, that hiring manager is likely looking at your skills with a narrow scope to see if you would be a good fit for that role. When you work with a recruiter, we look at the whole candidate and work to find a variety of options for you. Sometimes you many even find out about opportunities you didn’t know you were qualified for. 

Make a Plan

Compare your existing skills and experience with the jobs you’d like to pursue. How do you get to where you want to be from where you are now? If you’re pursuing a job in a line of work you have plenty of experience in, charting that course can be relatively easy. If you’re branching out into new territory, you’ll definitely want to identify any gaps in necessary skills and experience and seek out ways of bridging them. Are there any jobs that you are currently qualified for that would allow you to get your foot in the door of the industry or company that you desire to work in?

Take Advantage of Resources

For instance, if you are registered with Manpower, you already have a free and versatile training tool available to you. Manpower’s PowerYOU training platform provides you with access to hundreds of free online courses that cover a wide range of topics, programs, and business skills. It’s an excellent starting point for those wishing to develop and strengthen their abilities to make them more competitive in the marketplace, or simply stay on top of their skills. Are there other resources available to you? Be sure to utilize them – your next opportunity could be right around the corner.

1. Discern Needs vs. Wants

As hiring managers in a job seeker’s market, we may need to make some reasonable concessions on what skills and experience candidates bring to the table. This doesn’t mean we advocate for hiring unqualified people, but more over we recommend having some flexibility. While your ideal candidate has 5+ years of experience, being open to looking at candidates with 2 or more years will vastly increase your pool. 

2. Act Quickly

According to Manpower’s 2016 Talent Shortage Survey, the best candidates are off the market in a mere 10 days. This means there is not time for a long and complicated hiring process.  You don’t want to lose out on a great hire in hopes that another will come along. If you can’t make the offer right away,  be sure to keep the candidate informed about the process with regular check ins. 

3. Know Your Value Proposition

Not every job is perfect for every person, but every job is perfect for someone. Know who that someone is, and be ready to speak about what makes this a great opportunity. Whether the draw is the position itself or the organization as a whole, you bring something unique to the table. Aside from compensation, what are your added perks? Free parking? On the bus route? Advancement opportunities? A job that ignites a passion? Ask yourself why you like working for the company, and go from there. 

4. Partner Up 

When it comes to filling both your permanent and your temporary openings, you don’t need to go at it alone. Partnering with a staffing firm like Manpower can give you a leg up on the competition. Not only will you gain access to our active candidate pool, we will also do the recruiting for you. Your success is our success, which means you can count on us to deliver the right candidates at the right time. And the best part is, you don’t pay a dime until we deliver. Who could turn down an offer like that?

5. Offer Competitive Comp Plans

As they say, “money talks”. Hiring and retaining top talent and recruiting passive job seekers requires having a robust and fair compensation strategy. Do you know were you stand in the market? Can you do better than your competition? There are a number of tools that you can use to measure the competitiveness of your compensation package, such as: Maine DOL, Glassdoor, PayScale and more. 

Final Tip: Get Social

Over the last several years social media has become a dominant force in the recruitment world. Resources like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have allowed companies the opportunity to get exposure to the passive candidates like no other platform before. The key is be consistent, post regularly and be engaging.  A poorly managed social media space may in fact be worse than not having one at all. 

1. Purpose

Have an end-goal in mind and be able to clearly explain what your hope to achieve. Be specific in terms of your goals and desires. Knowing your specific goals will help you focus your efforts and keep you motivated. It also makes it possible for your network to better help you. 

4. Path

Select the networking methods you want to use based on your purpose and what will be the most effective. Consider offline or face-to-face events based on your interests. Join online channels like LinkedIn or virtual groups to make connections and build meaningful relationships.

2. People

Determine who you know and who you want to know. Ask friends and family members who would be a good contact for you to reach out to. Ask them what companies they think would be a good fit for you. Make a list of those people and set up a time to chat. 

Master Tip

Some say that you are an average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Surround yourself with people that raise you up, challenge you, and encourage you to be the best you. 

3. Pitch

Take time to figure our how you would answer the question, “What can you tell me about yourself?” This should be a 30-second statement specific to your skills and experience. Most importantly it should prompt enough interest that a person wants to ask more questions.

 More Resources

If you are interested in more tips to help you navigate your job search visit our resource center.

Whats in It For You?

What Do You Bring To The Job?

What Will You Be Doing?

“Staffing firms are only for those that cannot find a job on their own.”

That is kind of like saying, “social media is only for people that can’t make their own friends”…While you obviously can find your own friends, social websites make it easier to meet and connect with people that you never knew existed.

Staffing services are much of the same, except much more. We are not just a tool that will help you expand your job search network. Our team members are employment experts; wouldn’t it be helpful to have an expert in your corner?

We want to be the first resource you turn to so we can help make finding a job as stress free as possible. According to the American Staffing Association, nine out of 10 workers said that staffing work made them more employable.

“An employment agency won’t have a position I would be interested in.”

Sometimes the perfect job is actually the one you never even knew you wanted. This is where a Recruiter’s expertise comes into play. We get to know you and help find a position that you will not only be successful in, but one you will also enjoy.

Manpower offers a variety of positions for every skill level from entry to executive level. We have jobs in accounting and finance, call center/customer service, marketing, engineering, hospitality, manufacturing, engineering and more. While there is a possibility we may not have a position you are interested in today, that doesn’t mean your ideal job may not come our way tomorrow. This is why being registered with us and clear about what you are looking for becomes so important. 

 “Staffing companies only offer temporary jobs.”

 We are proud to be able to offer temporary assignments because they fulfill a need in the marketplace both for employers and jobseekers that need a little flexibility. With that being said, our work doesn’t stop there.

The vast majority of our job openings are temp-to-hire, which means that ultimately they are a “working interview”. It is an opportunity for you to be able to go into a company and provide immediate value, and together both you and the company can decide if this is a good fit for the long term. 

With the talent shortage we are facing, we are seeing significant increase in employers reaching out to us in order to use our tools to increase their candidate pool. This means we source, screen, and place qualified candidates in front of them, and once an offer is made you will be employed directly through the company with access to their benefits package. 

Whether you come to us for temporary, temp-to-hire, or permanent work we will work with you to provide you with what you need, or at the very least, point you in the right direction.

The key to your success is pretty simple, and it is the mostly in your control – show up on time, work hard, and be a good team member – employers will take notice, and good things will come your way.

“A staffing company only offers low-paying jobs.”

Let’s begin by first saying that what one person considers to be low-paying, could be a significant increase and very satisfying to someone else.

Wages in Maine are steadily on the rise, and manpower works with our clients to make sure that the pay offered is competitive, because ultimately not only is it good for your wallet – is also makes it easier for us to recruit well-qualified candidates. Pay rates are determined by a number of factors and are never pulled from thin air. They are based on skill/education level necessary to do the job, past experience required, and market averages for similar positions.

One of the ways we support our associates in achieving their financial career goals is with our powerYOU training platform, which offers candidates hundreds of free online courses designed to help develop lifelong skills that are in demand, all which will move you forward in your career. These classes are also mobile friendly so you can explore and learn on the go. 

“Agencies take money from you.”

This is one of the most common and most pervasive myths out there in regards to staffing firms. While we are not in a positions to speak about what practices other agencies have, one thing is for certain, Manpower does not now, no have we ever, charged or taken money from any of our associates. All costs associated are covered by the hiring companies.

What is most important for any associate that works for us to understand is when we advertise a job opening, the pay rate that is advertised is exactly what you will be paid. We will never charge you a dime. If another agency is trying to charge you, we say…walk away.

“Everyone gets hired.”

We wish we could say it was that simple, but it isn’t. Many factors play in to the hiring decisions. Everything from how many and what jobs are available, to the skills necessary to do the job, to past work history and references. We are focused on finding the right people for the right job. Having a track-record of solid performance will increase your earning potential and help you grow in your career so we want to be sure you are successful. The same goes for our clients.

This does mean that not everyone we get an application from is hired. We do not hire on a “first-come-first-served” basis – we always look for candidates who are qualified for the job and who will provide immediate and consistent value to the organizations in which we hire for.