The University of Cambridge Tech Careers Fair, on 15^th February, invites you to explore what opportunities exist in Tech, and to speak with employers that interest you. Vacancies across Tech have grown faster than the wider labour market, despite a difficult 2022 for the sector (see graph below); true both for the US and UK.

With over 15 exhibiting employers, below are 4 ways to make the most of attending the Tech Fair…

1. Who Do You Want To Speak To?

It’s good to review which organisations will be exhibiting via Handshake, in advance of the Fair. This will give you a chance to consider who you might wish to speak to. I recommend learning more about the organisations and their roles through their company page on LinkedIn. By clicking on the ‘people’ filter on their LinkedIn company page, individuals’ roles can be identified to see if they may align with your interests. So if, for example, after researching the work of exhibitors Reply, your interest is piqued - perhaps by their work with metaverse environments - this could form the basis of your conversation with them. Make a plan and prioritise your approaches. You likely won’t get the chance to speak with all organisations present. Often conversations had in the first 15 minutes of a Careers Fair can prove most fruitful.

2. Honour Your Curiosity

Honouring your curiosity is perhaps the best way to direct yourself at a Careers Fair. This means engaging employers with questions that best reflect what you wish to learn about. This Fair represents a chance to ask open and explorative questions about their work, the things they care about, their impact, how their skills translated from academia into industry, opportunities to progress, travel and more. They are there to have a chat, so chat freely on the topics that matter to you.

3. Good Conversation Starters

It’s not always easy to know how best to open conversations with employers. Here are some conversation starters you can use:

• Tell me about x (where x= you/your organisation/your work/what brings you here)
• What projects have new grads done at your organisation recently?
• What’s your experience of working at <organisation> been like?

4. After the Fair

It can be useful to journal your reflections after the Fair; pay attention to what you paid attention to. Were you bored, curious, put-off, envious… and ask yourself why? What did you learn?

If a conversation felt like it could benefit from being developed, write to those individuals via LinkedIn (or their email if you were able to get it) and ask to “continue the conversation over a 10 minute Zoom call”, for example.

If conversations at the Fair yielded insights that could prove useful in applications, note these down, alongside the name of the person who shared that information. This is particularly powerful content for addressing application questions such as “why do you want to work here?”.

Finally: we hope you enjoy the Tech Fair. It’s been terrific fun to organise and I, alongside fellow team members, will be around on the night if you’d like to stop by for a chat. We’ll be wearing fetching orange lanyards!