If you are interested in leaving academia, one worthwhile networking activity is visiting career fairs. On career fairs, you have the chance to get in contact with potential future employers and to explore career opportunities. Mostly, job vacancies of exhibiting employers are published beforehand so that you can apply to specific jobs. However, even if you find no appropriate job postings, it is worth visiting interesting employers to get in personal contact and raise some questions.
In any case, visiting career fairs needs some time of preparation: You should search provided information about exhibiting employers and their respective web pages. Thereby you can identify employers that are potentially interesting considering your professional profile and can gather accessible information about them. You should update your CV and prepare some copies to distribute in case of interest. In the best case, you find some interesting job postings and prepare respective application portfolios.
Networking with potential employers outside academia at the T5 JobMesse in Hamburg, 22 October 2013.
The organizers of the T5 JobMessen provide a job market and employer profiles on their webpage. They recommend to carefully prepare for their career fairs by reading respective employer profiles and search for job ads of exhibiting firms.
Networking with potential employers inside and outside academia at the Naturejobs Career Expo, 19 September 2013, in London
This career fair “promotes global career opportunities in science, be it in industrial research, research organisations or academia. It presents the best opportunities from the best organisations: public, private, national and international. […] The program includes tracks for graduates and postdocs, skills workshops and talks on careers in a range of industries.”
You might consider visiting the “Horizons in Molecular Biology”, taking place from 9-13 September in Göttingen. As scientific event which integrates a career fair, it is also a great chance to network inside and outside academia.
If you want to look for further career fairs, the following links might be helpful:
- Information on the VBIO webpage
- CAREER Venture
- connecticum Jobmesse
- Jobvector Career Day
- Women & Work
