It’s time to dust off your business wear and practice your handshakes. The FBI, Humana, Horseshoe Southern Indiana and more than 30 other local and national businesses will be coming to the IU Southeast Hoosier Room on Oct. 15 to recruit and network with IUS students at this years Job Fair.

To prepare for this business networking event, we spoke with Danielle Leffler, interim director in the Career Development Center, to find the best practices and how you can prepare for the Job Fair.

“Make sure you have something professional to wear and make sure you polish up on your introduction,” Leffler said.

Besides dressing professionally and letting the recruiters know what you’re interests are, Leffler said that it’s important to bring multiple copies of your resume and to research the companies you’re interested in before hand.

“Really, social media research. More of the employers are using social media, so if you have a LinkedIn account look at their LinkedIn posts or their Facebook or Twitter,” Leffler said. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, just to get an idea of what kind of things they’re posting, what they care about, things like that.”

Leffler stressed the importance of having and maintaining a LinkedIn account because of its prevalence in the business world. After meeting with a recruiter, she said LinkedIn is the best way to stay in contact with the businesses a student is interested in.

“Get there card, follow them on LinkedIn and even if they don’t have a job right now that fits, they post about positions all the time on LinkedIn,” Leffler said. “By making those connections here there maybe something that comes up later that fits. Just because it’s not related at that particular moment, if that’s a company you really want to work for, you can make that connection.”

The Job Fair won’t be just for students looking for full- or part-time jobs, there will be representatives from businesses offering internships and management training programs.

Even if you’re not looking for a job or internship, Leffler said that this is a great opportunity for students to network and practice networking.

“Just because you’re not looking right now doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be making relationships with people,” Leffler said. “It’s worth having a conversation because these are the hiring people, these are the people who if they’re not doing the hiring themselves they’re putting those names back into their HR department saying, ‘These are the people you would want to consider.’”

Businesses coming to the Job Fair

• AIG
• Blue River Services, Inc.
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
• Fastenal
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• FedEx Ground
• Flexible Materials
• French Lick
• Help at Home
• Horseshoe Southern Indiana
• Humana
• Indiana House of Representatives and Senate
• Indiana State Police
• Kelly Services
• Kindred Healthcare
• LifeSpring Health Systems
• Massage Envy
• Maxim Healthcare
• Meaningful Day Services
• New Hope Services
• Northwestern Mutual
• Norton Healthcare
• PetFirst – Pet Insurance
• Rauch, Inc.
• Republic Bank
• Southern Indiana Rehab Hospital
• Thrivent Financial
• Total Quality Logistics (TQL)
• Unique Management
• United Parcel Service (UPS)
• Verizon
• Visionworks
• Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
• WDRB
• WJIE Radio
• Work One Southern Indiana
• Your Community Bank

Upcoming Career Development events

Wednesday, Oct. 7: Walk-In Wednesday, Build-A-Resume Workshop, Internship Information Session.

Tuesday, Oct. 13: Social Sciences Internship Panel, LinkedIn Lab.

Wednesday, Oct. 14: Walk-In Wednesday, Build-A-Resume Workshop, Internship Information Session.

Thursday, Oct. 15: Job Fair in the Hoosier Room.