Research everything! Before attending a showcase you should know what companies will be there, what positions are being offered, the skills that are required for these positions, industry trends, and the challenges facing the companies you are interested in. It is even important to study the event facility beforehand to see where the companies you are interested will be located so that you don't waste valuable time looking for one or two specific booths. Doing your research is by far the most important thing you can do before attending a showcase. Your research will help you tailor your resume to showcase the best skills for each position, it will help you create some good talking points and questions for recruiters, and it will help give you the confidence to approach recruiters and convince them that you are the best person for the job.  ​

Finding the right job is hard. From researching different companies and their cultures, different positions, new industries, customizing a resume and cover letter for each application, and then actually filling out an application the job search is most definitely like a full-time job. After researching and applying for many different positions it can become overwhelming to keep track of all the information you have acquired and all the steps that are still left to complete in order to make the job hunt as successful as possible. In our new app-centric world there are many project management and note-taking solutions (Evernote, Wunderlist, OneNote,etc) that would work well. My favorite, however, would have to be: Trello. ​

One of the oldest (and controversial) questions when it comes to creating a resume is: do I have to include a resume? If you decide to include one, inevitably the next question is always: how the heck do I write the objective? Unfortunately there is not always an easy answer for either of these questions. I'm hoping, however, that I can help clarify a few things with this post regarding to different scenarios when you might want to include an objective and how it may be most effective to write one if you do in fact decide to include it.