Job Fair Questions

[Amistad, RN]

Hey all! I am going to my first nursing career fair tomorrow and would appreciate some words of wisdom on how to be prepared. I'm in my last year of nursing school and will be graduating in May. So far, I've prepared copies of my resume and made a cheat-sheet of the top hospitals I want to stop at. A few questions...

My resume is 2 pages long -- should I print it double-sided or staple 2 pages together?

What sorts of questions should I ask? I was thinking of asking about what their employee orientation is like, what specialties are hiring, etc. Or about their nurse residency program if they have one. Is it appropriate if I ask the recruiter what their first nursing job was like?

Is it better to send a thank-you card in the mail or send an email?

I look forward to hearing from you all!

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

I was going to reply, but it looks like the fair was earlier today. How'd it go?

[Amistad, RN]

It went really well! I went around to all the hospitals I was interested in and even checked out some grad schools. Turns out none of the recruiters were taking resumes, but I did get their cards and sent follow-up emails.

I found it most helpful to ask about when they're accepting applications, what the employee orientation is like (if it's not a nurse residency program), and about the city it's located in. Most of the recruiters were pretty enthusiastic about their respective city.

Even though I don't want to go directly into grad school, it was helpful to learn about the different tracks such as MSN, PhD, CNS, or even MSN/MPH.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Even though I'm late to this party... :)

For future job fairs, I'd staple the resume. I don't know how likely people are to check the back side of the page--I know I probably wouldn't at first--so there's a chance anything printed on the reverse side of the page could be missed. With two pages, that info won't be overlooked.

I'd also give trying to get it down to one page a fair shot. However, it that makes it illegible/impossible to read, or if making it one page cuts out too much valuable info, then it's better to have it remain two pages and have a really strong staple.