A job fair?

Today I went to a "Job Fair," having been to many of these events in the past I began preparing for the day by rewriting my resume so that it was sufficiently vague to be able to hand it to potential employers without having multiple versions of the same old thing. Part of the reason for doing it this way was partly because no matter how hard I tried I could not find a single advertisement that listed the attendees.

For the last week I had begun doubting that there even was a job fair but after some frantic searching on the internet I made a couple phone calls and got an affirmative response that "yes, there was a job fair, but no, they didn't have any information on just who would be attending...."

Oh boy, bad sign.

Back to today, I printed off ten copies of my resume as well as multiple copies of supporting documentation on the chance it would be requested, shaved, cleaned up, broke out tie and jacket and was on my way downtown.

I thought my luck was holding when as I got ready to feed the meter, a man in the car in the space in front of me leaned out and asked if I wanted I wanted his space because it had time left on the meter. Thanking him, I pulled forward and saw that there was indeed almost an hour remaining! Bonus!

Following a quick trip to the loo, I made my way to the job fair - strange, the hallway leading to the event was devoid of people, no lines, no chatter, nothing. This did not bode well. Oh well, in for an inch, in for a mile, with a tug of my tie I turned the corner and saw that amid the balloons, freebies and cheery signs there were so few employers' tables that I could have given each one a copy of my resume and would have had a couple left over!

As I slowly walked around the small clutch of tables, a few recruiters gamely showed a smile and tried to engage me in their sales pitch. but it was very quickly apparent that any jobs available were in call centers and manual labor. There was one computer company that had a grand total of two (2, count 'em 2) IT jobs open but it was obvious that the primary reason they were there was to sell computer and IT training as was one other booth representing a nationally known online university that shall remain nameless.

On my way out I had the opportunity to fill out a survey about my experience and suffice to say I didn't rate them very high.

Dejected at this flop, I headed back to the car, all the more pissed off at myself for thinking that this time would be any different. There was NOTHING there other than low-paying menial jobs and thinly veiled attempts to get as much money from the people who can least afford to give it up.

Big sigh, oh well, back to the want ads and job websites....