How to Make the Most of a Corporate Presentation

It’s not just attending the Corporate Presentation that gets you a leg up, but attending it in the right way. If you are going to go to one, you might as well get the greatest return on your time investment. Here are some tips to make the most of your attendance at a Corporate Presentation:

• Do some preliminary research on the company. Don’t go there expecting for the recruiters to fill in all your knowledge gaps at the event. You should do your research before the presentation and know it.
• Take notes at the event about keys issues that may be relevant to future interactions including career fairs and interviews. For example, certain information may be hard to obtain from the company website and sites like Hoovers (i.e., company culture, expectations of candidates, even your own observations about how the company is discussed by the recruiter).
• If there is time during the presentation and the recruiter has allowed for it, ask a thoughtful question that demonstrates that you have done research and are an informed potential candidate. Ask a question that you truly have and not one that is simply meant to demonstrate your knowledge, which can make you look over confident.
• After the event, stop to talk with the recruiter. At the very least, introduce yourself, thank them for their time and get a business card. If you do ask a question or make a comment, make sure that you are engaged, but keep it brief as they may have many other participants to attend to and being a “time hog” doesn’t endear you to a recruiter.
• Follow-up 24 hours after the event–thanking the recruiter for their time and perhaps asking a follow-up question or enquiring as to whether they will be at other events on campus that you can attend.
• Make sure that you find some way to retain in your memory the name of the recruiter so that you can address him/her by name. Make sure you use Ms. or Mr. and the Last Name unless you are told otherwise by the recruiter (e.g., “you can call me Jane”)
• It would be good to develop files on each of the companies that you are interested in that contains the research that you have done, business cards from recruiters (with notes on the back regarding specific details you should recall), emails that have been sent to or from recruiters, as well as other important information. This file will be important to unearth before Career Fairs and will help you to engage with recruiters in a much more facile way.

Here are some basics on attending Corporate Presentations. If you follow some of these suggestions, you will make your company research process easier which will facilitate your interaction with recruiters in the future. If you want to be remembered by a recruiter, you have to show that you are interested, prepared, and retain critical information.