What Masters students need to know about the Grad Fair 2017 University of Manchester Careers Blog

What Masters students need to know about the Grad Fair 2017 Your Masters degree ends in September/October, so the autumn recruitment fairs happen at just the right time to help you find a job, right? Wrong! If youre going to find a job at a recruitment fair starting this year, the fair you need is the summer Graduate Recruitment Fair next week. Why? Here is a big difference between the types of jobs advertised at these fairs. Autumn recruitment fairs are primarily aimed at larger employers looking to fill their graduate schemes, normally a year in advance. Therefore, the majority of jobs on offer at the autumn fairs start in the autumn of the following year October 2018 which is a long way off if you graduate with a Masters at the end of 2017. The Grad Fair is mainly full of employers looking to fill posts immediately or in the next few months. Some are large employers, where they are looking for a few new recruits, sometimes because they havent filled all those vacancies first advertised last autumn. However, most of the recruiters at the summer fairs are medium-sized employers with immediate vacancies. For these employers, its very hard for them to predict whether they will have vacancies in 12 months time, but they do know they will have job vacancies over the next few months. What if I dont want a job until after I finish? This  can  sometimes cause a problem, if the recruiter wants someone to start straight away. However, its worth discussing with them whether they are prepared to wait until youve completed your dissertation or project. They may be more interested in the right person than an immediate start date. Also, in some cases, they may be more than happy to look at a slightly later start date the summer fairs might have come around a bit early for them too! This is the time to practise your negotiation skills. Will there be the right jobs there for me? For some of you, yes. For others, definitely no. You really cant generalise about Masters postgrads. If youve come straight from an undergrad degree with little work experience,  the fairs may be  a very good starting point for you. If youre an experienced professional,  you probably wont find the perfect job at these fairs, though you may be able to get some good inside information on employers in which youre interested. If you are looking for a very specialist role, or one in a highly competitive sector like museums, the media or consultancy, the employers youre looking for may not be at the fairs though its worth checking beforehand you never know. Will it be worth my time coming to the fairs? Try reading my advice on the main postgraduate careers website and make your own mind up. How to make the most of careers events as a postgraduate If you decide to  come to the fair, this will also give you some clues about the right questions to ask, to avoid that well, that was a waste of time feeling (something I often hear from postgrads who have taken the wrong approach  at recruitment fairs). How will I know if the right employers will be at the fairs? By looking at  who’s coming and what degree subjects they are looking for. Download our app for the fair (available for Android or Apple, just before the fair) to find out more about which employers are looking for which subjects. http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/events/gradfair/ Details of the Graduate Recruitment Fairs in Manchester: When:  Thursday May 4th 2017, 10.30-16.00 Where:  Armitage Centre, Fallowfield, Manchester Register in advance to avoid the queues on the door:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-grad-fair-2017-manchester-thursday-4th-may-tickets-33040054693 Save All Events and fairs Postgrad-highlighted Postgraduate job hunting postgraduate