I got the opportunity to attend Grace Hopper Conference 2017 held in Orlando, Florida. The experience was one of its own kind and the energy at the conference was incredible.
Here a few tips that I would like to share with you to help you make the most of the conference.
1.) Try to reach early.
Try to reach early not only for the keynotes and talks but also at the conference itself. So, say if the conference begins on Wednesday try to reach your destination by Tuesday at least. This will help you to settle down, roam around the conference centre. If the career fair hall is open. Take a look at various booth numbers as that will help you the next day :)
You may also attend the first timers get together and you may get to network. Another benefit of reaching early is that you can get your badge without standing in long queue. On my way back to hotel I got the opportunity to ride cycle rickshaw sponsored by Google.(Not the best pic..but in my defence it was 9 pm already)
2.) Don't overload yourself with SWAGs(Stuff We All Get)
Trust me you are not even going to use half of the SWAGs you collect. So, don't focus on them specially in the morning hours, you may start gathering them in the later part of the day . Make sure to carry a back-pack to put in all the stuff that you collect eventually. Also, companies carry a lot of SWAGs. They have pretty good idea of the quantity that might be required as it is certainly not their first time at the conference. Here is the pic of my luggage after the conference. It was pretty much empty on day zero.
3.) Prepare multiple versions of the Resume
Some attendees are open for multiple profiles. For ex: someone might be interested in Data Science kind of role or a Software Dev role. So make sure to carry multiple versions of your resume, detailing different storylines so as to align to the role of your interest. Also, it is possible that you might be open for both Internship/Co-op and full time opportunity. In this case too, make sure to have different resumes as you might want to highlight different aspects of your work experience/projects.
4.) Pack your food to the conference
In my opinion, lunch time was the best time to interact with the recruiters as you don't have a queue waiting behind you since people are off for lunch. That is a good time to interact with recruiters. Also, the food stalls don't serve very healthy version of food that might be required to keep your energy level up during the conference. So, I used to order the food the night before and would pack it to the conference. This way I didn't have to stand in line during lunch hours and would leave me ample time to interact with the recruiters.
5.) Read about the sponsoring companies
Before the conference you will be given access to an app where you can find the booth numbers for the companies you are interested in. So make sure to make use of that app. Shortlist atleast 5 companies that you would like to meet on Day 1 itself as for companies high in demand the queue builds up pretty quickly. Also, if you already get the opportunity to take a look at the career fair before hand then you can easily map the booth for the company of your preference. Read a bit about the companies you want to meet.
6.) Interview Scheduling
I would suggest to get done with interview rounds for the companies that show interest in your resume before the conference itself. For the companies who have already reached out to you there is no point to schedule the interviews at the conference specially for full time. You may use that time to interact with more companies and get their attention. Use this tip with a grain of salt as the position you are interested in might get filled up at the conference itself. So, you might want to strike a balance between the number of interviews you want to schedule at the conference vs balancing time to interact with other companies or attending technical talks.
If you want to practice interview sessions or need coding tutorial/resume review feel free to reach out to me via https://deepikaa.youcanbook.me/ for more info.
7.) Don't miss out on cool stuff
There will be a lot of booths hosting fun activities for ex snake and ladder by asking python questions. In 2017, there was a company that was printing your 3D face LIVE that you could eat afterwards. At some other booth you could get print on a wallet customised. At one of the booths, you could make your own circuit by using silver pen and coin battery. I even won Amazon Echo Show in one of the coding competition held at GHC.
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