Networking, Networking, Networking

This semester I attended Canisius College’s Griff Fair for my networking event. They had over thirty businesses all set up in Science Hall. There were many different booths all with one to two individuals representing their company. It looks extremely overwhelming, especially for myself who does not love crowds or cramped places. A few days before, I looked up the various businesses that would be there and created a cheat sheet for myself to try and get through it. I looked up the companies and wrote down a few key points that I could discuss with them about their company and the values of the company. I also printed out fifteen to twenty copies of resume in case they asked for it. When I showed up they gave us a list of the companies there and I checked off the ones that I was interested in going to. However, before I went and talked to the companies, I practiced on ones that I wasn’t very interested in so that I could have a warm up and practice my elevator speech. The event was very successful and I talked to a number of different companies and got the feel of what a job fair is like. From this I learned that job fairs are not my favorite way of networking; they are very overwhelming and chaotic and I think that I prefer a way that is a bit more personal and smaller.