The Workermonkey

Thursday, May 12, 2005

On the career front... 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 5/12/2005 03:53:00 PM

I went to a "Career Fair" the other day at teh Sheriton in Burlington. As i drove into the parking lot i noticed there was a bunch of activity, people going in and out. It seemed as though it was a busy place. I parked, got out of hte car and looked a the other people all walking towards the conference center door. There were about 5 guys a 2 women all walking at the same time i was. The guys were all middle aged, anywhere from 30 to 50, and they all looked kind of depressed. It hit me that these guys aren't here for plesent reasons. they'd all been working somewhere for years and then been fired or let go and now finding a job was a matter of feeding thier family. Me, i was just there to check it out and see what it was like. I had a smile on my face and entered it with a positive attitude.

In the lobby there was a registration table to sign in with a bunch of nice old ladies passing out name tags and asking people to drop thier resumes into a raffle. I wrote my name in nice big letters and continuted into the "slaughter house". It was a big room filled with corporate booths and packed with people in suits, busily passing out resumes and passing around business cards. I wondered around the floor looking over all the booths and checking out who was there. I stopped at a pair of engineering firms booths and talked to the guys who were meeting people. these were both simple exchanges, "hi, i'm XXX" "oh, nice to meet you" "i'm an ME and i'm wondering what your company does?" "ok we're into XXX and we're currently looking for XXX and XXX" "oh great i have experince in XXX" "thats great, let me take your resume"

These exchanges are worse then small talk because at the end of the conversation the only real thing that's been accomplished is that you've dropped your resume into a box. The guys working the table are there because that's thier job, they aren't the ones doing the hiring, they just collect resumes for someone else. You aren't meeting anyone who you need to make a good impression on, just a guy doing his job.

I had this same exchange with a lady at the General Dynamics both. Then she asked if i had been to thier web site. i said yes but that it was always nicer to meet people in person and give them a hard copy of your resume. She asked why, i told her because it had been my experience that these web sites don't always give all the information to the right people. sometimes your resume gets picked apart or only a text version gets sent to the right people. she seemed to take offense at this and took a stand for her companies "great" website. she didn't assure me that they got everyones resume, she told me, asserted that thier site was so great and how they get PDF copys of everyones resume. i backed off, not wanting to upset a prospective employer before i'd even given her my resume. she was a total bitch. and thier web site only asks for a text copy of your resume. biatch.

Wondering around the floor looking at the other companies there it was obvious that what i'm looking for wasn't there. only about 4 engineering firms had shown up and one other civil type company that i talked to (they were very interesting in my CTDOT experience, i guess civil guys are in demand) and the rest were bank, recruiter, financial places, and the army. the army had like 4 different booths, plus the VT department of corrections and the state police. after i walked by a few army booths i kind of snickered to myself because it was funny watching the army try to grab people left and right. the recruiter that was sitting there gave me a dirty look and made a dissatisfied noise in my direction, i don't blame him, i laughed at his simple presence.

my whole time here totaled about 45 minutes. it's been two days and no calls so its hard to call it a waste of time just yet. plus i think i only passed out 5 resumes. it was obvious i was the youngest person there too. i only saw one other person i'd even think was under 30. surprising since it was less then a mile from the UVM campus.

1 comments

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By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Thursday, May 12, 2005 4:06:00 PM  

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