The Tech Career Fair
Career Fair is everyone’s first stop when they step forward to look for a job. I attended a career
fair event where different companies participated. It was the first time in my life I ever felt
professional. The first time one goes forward to present themselves in front of the employer,
carrying a resume in hand, their identity is judged by various aspects that the employer can
perceive. Identity is symbolic creations based on the personal roles, and how people perceive
themselves, and how people want to be viewed by others, in our case, the employers.
Perception involves how a person views the world, organizes what is perceived, interprets
information, and evaluates information – all of which will influence symbolic activity.
Second basic idea, which is also a part of the holistic view that any employer checks upon, is
culture. Culture groups to which one belongs provides one with ways to describe and evaluate
identities. Verbal communication influences culture, and culture influences verbal
communication. Whenever one communicates verbally, cultural assumptions are presumed
and involve appropriateness and meanings within a given society or group.
In public space, when employers check upon multiple attendees, people transact multiple
identities. Each attendee would want to self-describe themselves to stand out of the pool. Selfdescription usually involves information about self that is obvious to others through
appearance and behavior. Some pool of people may also self-disclose themselves. Selfdisclosure enables people to talk about themselves, which establishes value to who they are
and reinforces how they view themselves. It also enables people to influence how they might
be seen by other people.
In a career fair, where expectations of work-place environment adherence from every attendee
is noticed, high code language is used. High code is a formal, grammatical and very correct way
of talking, used when speaking to someone with whom a person is unfamiliar or someone with
greater power or higher social rank.
During the formal talks, two types of frames are seen. Frames initially set up an interaction but
can be adjusted as it proceeds, as a result of changes in perspectives and thoughts that occur
during interaction. This process is called accommodation. There are two types of
accommodation processes - convergence and divergence. Convergence is when a person moves
toward the style of talk used by the other speaker; usually indicating liking or respect.
Divergence is when a person moves away from another’s style of speech to make a relational
point, like establishing dislike or superiority.
Anyone seeking for an internship, or a job would first make sure their resume makes a good
influence about them, also polishing up their elevator pitch in front of the employers. Behind
the scenes, it’s generally also essential to make connections on social websites like LinkedIn.
One needs to develop their personal branding to increase visibility and facilitate networking
actions. The digital strategy is to develop contacts to be more visible to prospect and to find
potential customers. The benefit of having more connections on LinkedIn is that you will
benefit from high-quality connections with high status, making them believe that you have
been in business long enough to trust you. Moreover, it also helps you attract professional
clients. To be able to do that, you need to have a strong digital marketing strategy and be
involved in different industry activities.
According to Jeffrey Boase, Barry Wellman, and Lee Rainie, studying the impact of the internet
on social networks, connections are distinguished into two types – core ties and significant ties.
Core ties are people with whom one has a very close relationship and are in frequent contact. A
person often discusses important matters in life with these people and often seeks their
assistance in times of need. in the case of significant ties, people who are more than mere
acquaintances but with whom a strong connection does not exist. A person is not overly likely
to talk with these people or seek help from these people, but they are still there when needed.
On LinkedIn or any such websites, it is found that when making connection in the career point
of view, people end up making a lot of significant ties. Core ties are rare, unless the person
works in the company or any high valued similarity they share. Making connection is more a
mode of asynchronous communication but not necessarily. Asynchronous communication is a
communication in which there is a slight or prolonged delay between the message and
response. The interactants must alternate between sending and receiving messages.
Participation is easy on social networking sites. For one thing, one might have a power user in
their list of connections. Power users are group of users who tend to be active when it comes to
posting, making comments on other user’s walls, making friendship requests, and engaging in
other activities. Power users are also a shortcut to make a lot of connections as they might have
a large circle.
After connecting with someone who’s part of the hiring team, one talks to them about our
interests and strengthens and mostly importantly share one’s resume and cover letter, which
are tools that help the hiring team know if one will fit into their company etc. The purpose of
resume is to present one’s experiences and credentials for a position for a position in a clear
and concise manner. The cover letter is the tools used to get a potential employer to review
one’s resume. It has four purposes – declare interest in the position, provide summary of
qualifications, compel the person to read one’s resume and request an interview.
While framing the documents, it is important to keep some facts in mind. One guarantees their
application going into the shredder if one does not appreciate that the person reading
applications is very busy. So, one must not make it hard to read the letter. It is also important to
make sure that the font size is big enough for a person to read and do not use exotic fonts. One
must make efforts to stand out among a pool of hundreds of applicants for the job, in a good
way. One must also ensure to make the information they put out to be relevant as much as
possible.
If they are interested in hiring one, they schedule an interview. This is when Synchronous
communication comes in the picture. Synchronous communication, in which people interact in
real time and can at once both send and receive messages, happens when an employer is
interested in hiring someone and to have a one-to-one conversation that also helps them to
measure the genuinity of the person.
Interviews encompass unique characteristics namely – goal-driven, question-answer,
structured, controlled and unbalanced. Interviews are more goal-driven. They have a clear
purpose – finding out information, solving a problem, trying to persuade, hiring the best person
for a job- opening. Interviews consist of one person asking questions and another person
answering them. In case of interviews, it is not common for one person to ask all the questions
and the other person and the other person to answer them all. They are structured more than
other communication as they involve planning and preparation and have a clear sequence so
that they reach a specific goal. Interviews are generally controlled by the interviewers. The time
an interviewee spends talking is usually unbalanced.
There are politeness strategies that one must follow while talking to the employers, first of
which is, if it is online the necessary system requirements and stable internet connection must
be assured. If it is in-person one must present in a formal and respectful manner. Research
indicates that grooming and attire are most important factors in shaping impression, but
interviews may differ on a preference toward conservative attire or trendy attire. It is best to
dress according to the position for which one is getting hired. Also arriving late makes bad
impression to an interview and arriving too early might make an interviewee seem overeager.
So, it is safe to arrive 15 minutes early to be punctual, without appearing overly enthusiastic.
While verbally communicating with the team, one must keep in mind some politeness
strategies. This does not go without saying that this must also be followed while talking about
one’s skills, experience, interests etc. There are five types of politeness strategies namely, bald
on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off record politeness, avoidance. Bald on
record is when a person acts directly without concern for face needs. Positive politeness is
when a person focuses on positive face, often flattery or by offering something in return.
Negative politeness is when a person acknowledges the possibility of negative face, offering
regrets or being pessimistic. Off record politeness is when a person hints at or presents a facethreatening act in a vague manner. Avoidance is when a person avoids a face threatening act
altogether. Usually, employment interviews take place in career fair perspective. Employment
interviews are those in which potential employer interviews a potential employee.
During the interview, one is also expected to be in engaged listening which means, making a
relational connection with the source of a message to create shared meaning and
understanding. One version of engaged listening is task-oriented listening or concentrating hard
on the job at hand. At the same time, expressing leadership and being professional can also
make the best impression to the interviewer. Leadership is not a trait. There are complicated
social influences from other people in a group. These influence how a leader behaves, and
relationships between group of members are part of that.
On concluding an employment interview, it is important that positive relational connections
among the interviewer and the interviewee must be maintained. The five things to keep in
mind to do at the conclusion of an interview are – ask questions, reinforce qualifications and
enthusiasm, inquire about the future schedule, offer thanks and engage in farewells.
It is always likely to encounter the question “Why should we hire you?”. Hence, it is always safe
to have a very good answer for that. The question is put forward to find out how the
interviewee, specifically, would benefit the organization. This is the opportunity to reveal about
one’s strengths and abilities and mention the interests that are to that which any department
of the company works on.
It is also possible that the interviewee would have to face illegal questions from the
interviewer. Equal employment opportunity laws have been established, to prevent possible
discrimination during hiring process. Areas of topics that fall under illegal questioning are – age,
marital/family status, ethnicity/national origin, religion, affiliations and disabilities. How one
deals with such violations depends on factors like one’s own perception of its intentionality and
how one desires for the job. One can choose to continue the conversation by answering to such
questions in a harmless way.
After the interview, if shortlisted, it is evident to think of the next steps of accepting or rejecting
the offer based on any circumstances. The interviewee has three responsibilities following an
interview. They are – assess the interview, send a follow-up and avoid irritating the interviewer.
If one’s opportunity is turned down, it is always advisable to clarify what exactly lacked in their
profile, with the help of the interviewer or the company.
After shortlisting, background checks and all the formal process that takes place before starting
the first day of the job, one might have to team up with other people of similar interests to
form a group. Such a group in a workplace, is called formal group. Formal groups are taskoriented, general management oversight, outcome focused, often legislative or formally
structured to run an organization. Membership in formal groups is always restricted.
Attendance is expected. Clear structure is expected from the teammates. An agenda must be
made out and followed. Finally, there are formal rules for turn-taking and other activities.
The Fisher’s Model of Group progression consists of orientation, conflict, emergence and
reinforcement. Orientation is when group members get to know one another and come to grips
with the problems they have convened to deal with. Conflict is when the group argues about
possible ways of approaching the problem and begins to seek solutions. Emergence occurs
when some daylight of consensus begins to dawn, and the group sees the emergence of
possible agreement. Reinforcement is when the group explicitly consolidates consensus to
complete the task, or the leader may do it for the group by thanking everyone.
Citation:
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Communication in Everyday Life, A Survey of Communication, FOURTH EDITION
Steve Duck, Rhetoric Dept, USA, University of Iowa, USA, David T McMahan - Missouri
Western State University, USA
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-make-connections-linkedin-essential-guidephilippe-weickmann/
https://www.talentlyft.com/en/resources/what-is-career-fair