At job fairs, employers market their companies to candidates, discuss employment opportunities, and, typically, conduct screening interviews. We consider the salient feature of a job fair to be the candidates' unrestricted access to all employers. (Placement firms often organize and host hiring conferences for their clients, where the interaction is normally orchestrated by the placement firm. Placement firms recruit, screen, qualify, and prepare candidates to meet with clients. When they place a candidate with a client employer, placement firms receive fees from the client. For more on executive recruiters and placement firms, see Kennedy´s Pocket Guide to Working With Executive Recruiters.)

The Service Academy Career Conferences (SACC) are two-day events. The job fairs (held on a Friday), are preceded by an interview preparation seminar on Thursday evening. The SACC is operated and hosted jointly by the service academy alumni organizations. (Registration is centralized at the US Naval Academy Alumni Association.) Each year, we host three SACCs: the current rotation is Pentagon City (DC-area), VA in the spring; San Diego in August; and San Antonio, Texas in November. An AOG executive attends every SACC.

Some employers at the SACC are seeking to recruit junior military officers for entry-level positions and fast-track leadership programs. Others, however, are searching for mid-career or career military officers for specific positions. (At the SACC, service academy graduates are often on the employers recruiting teams.) Beyond that interaction, however, the SACC is a great networking and research opportunity. You can learn about career fields, begin to prepare for a future transition, establish contacts with employers, and practice your interviewing skills.

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