How to Career Fair: PhD & Postdoc Guide

Almost 200 employers come to the Fall Career Fair every September, and we want to help you strategically navigate such a large event.

Use our filterable spreadsheet to identify which employers are offering internships (for PhDs) versus full-time opportunities (PhDs and postdocs). You can filter by “major groups” what industry a company is associated with, companies willing to sponsor visas, and populations companies want to hire (undergrads, grad students, or postdocs). Don’t get too specific with the filters. In the categories, you can “filter by field” and try to use the Boolean operator “OR” rather than “AND” to maximize the list of companies.

After this initial list, go through to the websites of the companies that interest you and find full time opportunities/internships listed on their company page. Why should you do this first? Because recruiters might not know every single job listed on their employer’s webpage, and they will often re-direct you to their company website. So do some research beforehand so you can talk to them about a SPECIFIC role you are interested in and show how you are proactive and want to ask more key questions about roles and projects rather than simply “what opportunities do you have at X company?”

In sum: make your list of employers, have the roles you are interested in associated with those employers READY to maximize your time.

After waiting in a few lines (be nice to those first years!), you’ll have the chance to talk to an employer representative. They could be HR, talent acquisition, a senior scientist. Many different representatives come to the FCF. Be polite and to the point! That’s why we suggest limiting your conversation to THREE questions.

Don’t forget to introduce yourself to each other!

It’s okay to say, “Hi I’m Alex Yen, I’m the designated Postdoc Career Advisor at MIT CAPD.” Then, shake hands and feel free to ask (if they don’t introduce themselves), are you <their name> part of talent acquisition or a particular research division?

1. Share your elevator pitch and add your first question at the end

After introductions share your elevator pitch. A general elevator pitch consists of three parts:

• Who you are (I’m a PhD/Postdoc doing research on X)
• What you really enjoy/what makes you stand out (I like solving ABC problems; my particular expertise is XYZ; I like being an interdisciplinary researcher in 1/2/3 intersection)
• How you feel this aligns with the company/how this aligns with a QUESTION you have for the company

Example:
As I mentioned, I’m the designated Postdoc Career Advisor at MIT’s Career Advising and Professional Development office, so I develop career support programs for and do career advising for MIT’s 1500 postdocs (Who you are) . I like say I’m part of a pipeline; I’m the institution side that sends talent to you, the recruiter on the company side (what makes me stand out/what I like to do). I noticed your company has 2 open Machine Learning engineer roles, and the postdocs would definitely be interested in these positions. Could I ask if there is a core project or group of projects these engineers are going to be part of? There wasn’t a mention of this in the job description or company website about the key project aligned with these roles (my first question).

2. Follow up with only two more questions that help you assess YOUR fit.

Asking these questions and hearing the answers requires active listening: paying attention to if the recruiter is really excited to talk to you, or is simply saying general information. If they are unsure of your question, if there are key terms they are using that you need to remember.

For example: say the recruiter states there are multiple projects the ML engineers will be part of, my next question might be:

“That’s really exciting. I noticed the responsibilities and skills for the roles are really similar for the different projects. Is the company recruiting for those who have expertise in similar research as those projects? Or is it open and the company tends to train hires into their roles in projects?” (The main goal of this question: are they looking for a very specific specialist who already knows how to do the job, or are they open to teaching someone?)

For a third question, think about what is crucial for you in a position:

Some things recruiters and company representatives might not know. If they aren’t part of HR (for example, a scientist is representing the company at the fair), they might not be able to tell you whether the company sponsors visas. Ask who YOU are talking to in order to know what questions will be relevant!

Remember: these three questions are helping you find information that you might put in a cover letter or details in your resume!

You’ve learned important information about this company, their open roles, and most of all if you’d like to apply to these jobs (and details to put into your cover letter!).

Thank the employer representative for their time and if you had a very enjoyable exchange, and even if there are no open roles at this moment you can still exchange contact information. Note that these representatives will often have many, many LinkedIn messages in the next few weeks from all the people they meet at FCF. It’s okay to ask if you can follow up on LinkedIn and email.

Do a follow-up in the next few days. It’s completely okay to follow up a month later if you have a few more questions or would love to ask if there is a way to connect with someone in the company to do a 30 minute informational interview. It’s even better if a position appears after a few months and if you do have questions, you can reach out again to see if this representative might know the team lead that you can meet with. Remember to be polite as you represent the advanced degree talent at MIT!