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Standing out at a Career Faire can make a difference in your search. Job Faires are starting to pick up, and a major job search company is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a San Jose Area Career Faire in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and a major job search company has 82 career faires scheduled for this year across the United States.

How do you rise above the crowd at a Career Faire? The competition can be considerable, but you can help yourself jump out from the crowd with early homework. At AA-Careers, we have a straight-forward six-step process to get ready. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:

First, research the companies that are going and pick your targets. Use the web to check out the companies that are there before you even decide to go. Go to their web sites and see if they have their jobs listed. Pick a small number to go after, and get ready to spend about an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than eight in a day, and three or four is a much more reasonable target. For each hiring organization, you want to know: executive names, recent news, and key product lines. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You will end up with with a page or two of research for each company/job.

Second, if there are job openings on the web, read them to see what the company is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the language match. If the hiring organization calls customers "clients", your resume should do the same thing. The accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring organization.

Third, create a ‘brief sales pitch’ for each likely organization/position combination. Write down a ninety second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally describing why you are a fantastic prospect for that position. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet people at the job booth.

Fourth, modify your resume for each position. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position you’re going after. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the accomplishments and skills that most clearly match the job description. Especially at a Career Fair, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be obvious to see that you’re a match based on your resume.

Fifth, rehearse your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each spot - bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a clearly marked folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.

Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress nicely and be fittingly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any cologne or perfume sparingly, if at all.

Remember to smile, and good hunting!

Massage of any kind is relaxing and promotes a feeling of
calmness. To many health practitioners, in fact, foot massage
has been known to be good for health and well-being. Foot
massage is common throughout the east as a healing method. In
the east, foot massage is not only practiced on adults but on
children as well.

Foot massage or reflexology works in the same manner as
acupuncture. Each area of the foot corresponds with another area
of the body and by massaging each part of the foot, you may be
working on your liver, kidney, colon, stomach, etc. Thus, if you
experience constipation, a massage through your feet can help in
your bowel movement problems.

Health benefits are not entirely proven, but many claim they
work. It is said that reflexology can get rid of toxins, help
your circulation, improve body functions and even improve
memory. A professional foot reflexologist can even diagnose the
health problems that you are facing just by massaging your feet.

Foot massage can be really painful. This is especially if more
pressure is applied. Screams of pain from a patient in a foot
massage center is not uncommon. However, this should not deter
you, if you are considering a foot massage. Just explain to the
foot reflexologist about your low tolerance for pain and ask him
to adjust the pressure applied.

If nothing else, a foot massage will help melt away the day’s
stress. Your feet take the biggest beating throughout the day.
They have to get you where you need to go and hold up your
entire body weight. People tend to overlook their feet. However,
hurting feet may just render a person immobile.

With many new age ideas filtering to the west, foot massage has
also become more popular in areas like the United States. It is
a natural way of treatment after a long hard day. The health
benefits may be disputed but it never hurts to try it out and
see what benefits it may hold for you.

I’ve tried many forms of exercise: weightlifting, martial arts,
swimming, running and so on. But there’s one form of exercise I
started doing about 3 months ago that’s proved to be an
unbelievable workout….

….boxing!

Now I don’t mean with sparring gear on, getting hit in the head.
I’m referring to either using a punching bag by yourself, or
punching mitts with a training partner. The workout is
exhausting and also somewhat of a stress reliever.

I use Everlast gear because their products hold up. We do three
intense 2-minutes rounds each with sit ups in between…I’m
telling you, what a workout!

These are purely my recommendations based on past experiences:

My training partner and I use the following Everlast punching
mitts:
http://store.everlastboxing.com/everlast-high-performance-mantis-
punch-mitts.html. Only $45 dollars and they work great.

If you’d rather not workout with someone, you can get the
following punching bag from Everlast for only $160 dollars:
http://store.everlastboxing.com/everlast-freestanding-heavy-bag.h
tml. It’ll last you a long time. If you think you’re in tip top
shape, try developing a workout that focuses around boxing. Like
me, you may soon find yourself thinking “whoa!”