Here are our top tips if you are job searching and going to the London Book Fair (LBF). Use these wisely during the Fair and then finish off your visit by coming to our bookcareers.com Careers Clinic on the Thursday – essential if you are looking for job. It costs to get in to the London Book Fair, but if you are unemployed or unable to get a ticket via your workplace, we have a limited number of free tickets to give away. Please contact us at online@bookcareers.com to apply.
1. Don’t expect to find a job at the London Book Fair. If you are coming it is to seek information, look around and keep up with developments. Be prepared to potentially make contacts and network. Our tips for networking will help.
2. Exhibitors. Unless they are recruitment consultants or training providers or within our bookcareers.com Clinic they are unlikely to be at the LBF for you; Exhibitors are there to buy and sell and do deals. A publishers’ output for the next few years may rely on the business they do at the fair, so bear this in mind if someone is curt with you if you are asking questions. Likewise if you are going from stand to stand trying to pitch your unpublished novel to a publisher at the LBF.
3. Do not go around handing in your CV (but you can hand your CV in at the bookcareers.com Clinic on the Thursday). There is probably no one on the stand who is from HR and even if someone does accept your CV it is unlikely to make it back to the office. Much better to check their website afterwards and see if they accept speculative applications, before emailing your CV to the office instead. However, business cards are the standard level of communication that one would expect at a Book Fair. We recommend Moo for business cards* and lots of our clients have had a successful experience using them.
4. Do go through the list of exhibitors (search by category, rather than alphabetically is useful) and make a note of which stands you want to see. Check out the floorplan too so you don’t walk endlessly for miles – we have been asked to point out that you should WEAR, FLAT, COMFORTABLE SHOES!
5. Do look at the stands of the exhibitors that you want to see, noting the following:-
- Look how busy they are. This could be an indication of how well they are doing at the moment.
- Notice how many staff are on the stand.
- Look at the stand design and layout. Is it good or bad? Would you do anything differently? These are always useful discussions for future sales and marketing staff to have at job interviews.
- What book or series are they promoting at the moment? Look at the walls and the sides of the stand. What are their lead titles? Again, excellent points to discuss at an interview.
- If they have catalogues or brochures to give out and you are up to carrying stuff, then take one, but be wary of picking up too much – you’ll be carrying it around all day. (Check they are free; and bear in mind that the copies of books on the stands are not for retail sale – this is a trade only fair). Although you can view publishers’ catalogues on line, taking a hard copy to an interview still speaks volumes.
- Check out the competitors of the publishers that you want to work for. What are they doing differently? Is it better?
- Make some notes so you don’t forget what you have seen!
6. Do go and look around all areas of the exhibition, so that you are informed of new developments and opportunities.
7. Do go and visit the recruitment consultants if they have stands, especially if they have had your CV for a while and you haven’t been put forward for anything. Putting a face to a name is a great way to remind them that you exist.
8. Seminars. There are lots of free seminars going on throughout the fair (over 200!). Here are our favourites:-
First and foremost our bookcareers.com Clinic is ESSENTIAL if you are looking for a job – at time of writing we have 10 Human Resources departments and 3 Recruitment Consultants confirmed. We will have a job vacancy noticeboard AND be collecting CVs for circulation later.
bookcareers.com Clinic
Introduction to Publishing – The Roles of Publisher and Agent
How to Get into Publishing
How to Get ahead in Publishing
Powering Publishing – How to Recruit the Perfect Team
Diversifying the Industry: Meet the Organisations Making Publishing more Inclusive
What Works: Gender Equality by Design – How to Eliminate Gender Bias in our Industry
The Academic Publisher’s Toolkit: Skills, Career Development and Staying up to Date
9. Parties. Towards the end of the day you will notice a number of standing setting up for drinks parties. If you are fortunate enough to be invited don’t get drunk and use our tips on networking to see you through the event. Networking events include Book Machine and Byte the Book.
10. Follow up! If you’ve made any useful contacts at the fair, don’t waste the opportunity and follow up promptly.