Questions to Ask at Career Fairs
Questions for the three or four minutes you actually get at a career fair booth: which roles are genuinely open, what happens to the resume you hand over, how applications are screened, and how to leave with a named contact and a deadline.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Which roles are you recruiting for at this fair?
Why ask it
Booths are often staffed with general company material while the live openings are narrow. Naming the roles in the first thirty seconds stops you spending your whole conversation on a division that is not hiring anyone this year.
Are those roles open now, or opening later in the year?
Why ask it
A role that opens in six months changes what you do today: you take a date and follow up rather than applying into an empty pipeline. Recruiters know the calendar even when they cannot give you a headcount.
Do you hire people from my background for those roles?
Why ask it
Recruiters are usually direct about this, which saves both of you time. If the answer is no, ask what they do hire your background for, since large employers run adjacent programs that never make it onto the booth material.
When do applications open and close for your internship or graduate program?
Why ask it
Deadlines are the detail most likely to be forgotten and most likely to matter. Ask for the opening date too, because many programs review on a rolling basis and stop early once enough offers are out.
Do you sponsor work visas for these positions?
Why ask it
If this applies to you, ask it early rather than at the end. It is a fixed policy that no amount of good interviewing changes, and discovering it at offer stage is the worst possible moment.
Where are these roles based, and is the remote arrangement company policy or team by team?
Why ask it
Job titles travel between offices; the jobs themselves do not. Ask which locations are hiring, whether relocation is supported, and whether the flexibility described is written policy or one manager's preference.
What happens to the resume I hand you today?
Why ask it
Paper collected at a fair sometimes goes into a box that nobody opens. Knowing whether this person screens applications or simply gathers them tells you how much work your resume is doing compared with your online application.
Should I also apply online, and where should I mention that we spoke?
Why ask it
The answer is nearly always yes, and a named conversation can lift an application out of the pile when the recruiter recognizes it. Ask specifically where to note it, since many systems have a referral or event field for exactly this.
Who reads applications for this role: you, a recruiter, or the hiring team?
Why ask it
Different readers reward different resumes. A recruiter scanning for keywords wants different phrasing from an engineer or manager reading line by line, and this is your one chance to find out who you are writing for.
What does the process look like after I apply, and how long does it usually take?
Why ask it
Knowing there is a timed test, a portfolio review, or four rounds across two months lets you prepare and plan around it. It also tells you at what point silence has become a rejection rather than a delay.
What makes you set a resume aside quickly?
Why ask it
Recruiters see hundreds in a day, so the answer comes fast and is usually concrete: no dates, an unexplained gap, three pages, no link between the experience and the role applied for. More useful than any general advice about formatting.
For someone without direct experience, what convinces you they can do the job?
Why ask it
The honest answer is almost always evidence of the work itself: a project, a portfolio, a course with something built at the end. Ask what counts as evidence for their team, then go and make that thing.
What are you working on at the moment?
Why ask it
Best aimed at an employee on the stand rather than a recruiter. Current work shows whether the tools and problems match the job description, and people relax noticeably when asked about their own work instead of the company's.
What surprised you in your first six months here?
Why ask it
Gets underneath the recruiting language. Answers tend to concern pace, how much autonomy people really have, or how much of the job is coordinating with other teams, none of which appears in a posting.
Who does well on your team, and who has found it hard?
Why ask it
Asking for both halves is what makes this work. If only the first half gets answered, the pitch is still running; a real description of who struggled is the most honest read on the environment you will get in a hall like this.
What did the last person you hired into this program do before joining?
Why ask it
The last hire is concrete evidence of where the bar actually sits, as opposed to what the requirements list claims. It also shows whether people tend to arrive from one school, one degree, or one previous employer.
Is there someone else on the stand I should speak to about the technical side?
Why ask it
Booths often have one recruiter plus one person who does the work, and everyone lines up for the recruiter. One question moves you to whoever can actually assess what you have built.
Can I follow up with you, and do you prefer email or LinkedIn?
Why ask it
Ask before the conversation ends and write the answer down. A named contact with a preferred channel is the entire value of a career fair; the branded water bottle is not.
Is there anything in my background I should explain before you see the application?
Why ask it
Worth asking only if something is visible: a gap, a career change, a failed year, no degree. Raising it face to face works far better than hoping an automated filter overlooks it, and recruiters will usually tell you plainly how much weight it carries.
What should I know about working here that is not on the website?
Why ask it
Late in a long day, this gets answered more candidly than you would expect. What comes back is often about a reorganisation, which teams are growing, or which office is short-staffed, all of which shapes where you apply.
Working a Career Fair
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Planning the hour you have
- Get the employer list beforehand and pick six: three you want, three you would take. A fair is unwinnable if you try to visit everyone.
- Go to your top choices first or in the last half hour. Mid-morning lines are longest, and late-day recruiters are more talkative.
- If the line at a stand is long, talk to whoever is standing to the side. It is often an engineer or a recent hire, and they answer more freely than the recruiter.
- Write two lines of notes immediately after each conversation, including the person's name. By the fifth booth they blur together.
- Keep a question in reserve for stands you had not planned to visit, so an unexpected conversation is not wasted.
Your first thirty seconds
Say who you are, what you are studying or doing now, one specific thing you have built or worked on, and what you are looking for. That is it. Practice it out loud beforehand, because the version in your head is always twice as long as it sounds. Avoid opening with a question about what the company does; the recruiter will assume you have not looked, and you lose the goodwill you needed for the rest of the conversation.
What to take with you
- More printed resumes than you think you need, even if everything is scanned; some recruiters still write on them.
- A short link or QR code to your portfolio, repository, or one-page project write-up.
- A notebook and pen for names and deadlines. Typing into a phone reads as distraction, fairly or not.
- Your six target companies with one specific question written under each.
- A bag with space, water, and something to eat, since you will be standing for hours and interviewing badly when hungry.
Following up so it counts
- Email within two days, while the recruiter can still place you. Reference the specific thing you discussed in the first line.
- Apply online the same day if they told you to, and note the fair and the recruiter's name in the referral field.
- Attach your resume again rather than assuming the one you handed over survived the day.
- Connect on LinkedIn with one sentence about the conversation, not an empty request.
- One polite follow-up after two weeks is reasonable. A third message is not, and recruiters remember which people sent it.