If you are looking for a professor job, you may encounter an academic job fair at a conference or professional meeting! These are very strange events…what to wear? How to prepare? Here’s some advice based on my experiences with them…
What to wear
It’s perfectly reasonable to be wondering what to wear to a job fair. If you’re at an academic conference, your woes might be solved by just wearing what you were going to wear to the conference that day. Unless you were planning to be super casual, I think almost anything business casual is fine! Here’s an outfit that would work on a budget:
Don’t forget that thrifting is almost always the best deal!
What do I do to prepare?
Take a look at who will be at the job fair (if a list is available) and check out their posted jobs (usually on Chronicles of Higher Ed, Inside Higher Ed, and any professional association page for your discipline). Make a list of jobs that would be a good fit for you and who the hiring chair is.
Draft a few questions for each job. You can certainly ask some similar questions to each employer–here are a few I really like:
-What are you looking for this new hire to teach in the department?
-What areas of the department are you hoping to grow in the future?
-What is going on at the university that is new/that you are excited about in the coming years? (Note: any links you can make to new initiatives around campus as you interview can be quite appealing).
After you meet with hiring chairs, if possible, take a few seconds to jot down notes. Meet and greets are free information about the kind of candidate they are looking for, and how you can make an argument for yourself in the cover letter and interviews.
What do I bring?
A short list:
-a notebook and pen
-water, water, water!
-a few copies of your CV and business cards (note: I have never seen someone want a physical CV, swapping emails is more common)
Have you been to a job fair? What other advice would you add?
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