Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

Who's the career fair-est, of them all?

Today, I had the privilege of attending the 2005 Penn Recruiting fair. This meant getting up at an ungodly hour, (meaning even Jesus was still sleeping), dressing up nicely, and lugging 30 pounds of materials to Philadelphia. After standing at my company’s booth and talking nonstop for five hours, it became very apparent that I was dealing with two very distinct groups of people:

• Those who care.
• Those who stare.

“Those who care” came up to me, full of energy, eyes bright and ready to ask a lot of solid, pointed questions. They knew what they were saying, to whom they were speaking, and why they were there. Basically, a good group of students.

“Those who stare” came up and said things like: “Hey, I see your poster says you do stuff. Stuff is pretty cool.” They would then stare at me, waiting for me to fill the awkward silence with something, and no matter what it was I said, they would inevitably nod their head in agreement. I put up with this at the beginning, but after one guy started rubbing my arm and drooling on my shoe, I got frustrated with this less-than-stellar pool of candidates. One guy asked some ridiculous question, so I told him that our primary focus was on helping circus performers live up to their potential. He did one of those half smiles, which said, “I think your kidding, but I’m not quite sure.” I returned his expression with a pity smile that said, “I think you are mentally deficient, but I’m not quite sure.” Just kidding, I gave him a hug and told him he was special.

However, overall, the negative incidents were relatively few and far between, as the number of good candidates definitely exceeded the number of bad ones, thus making the day an overall success. Furthermore, as anyone who has ever attended a career fair or convention knows, while the people that you meet are important, the free giveaways are just as crucial, (at least, to me). After all, I take to free stuff like…well, Jews take to free stuff, (in case you haven’t heard, I come from a very frugal people).

Generally, there is an unspoken understanding among participants that, in order to take free things, you must first stop for a moment, examine the materials at the booth and feign interest in what they are pitching before being entitled to the desired goods. However, some rogue career fair participants totally bypassed this convention and went from booth to booth, unabashedly grabbing the best prizes before moving on to the next. One such guy, who was either an old bearded professor in a ragged suit, or an old bearded homeless guy in his Sunday best, not only went around grabbing everything, but he did it with a scowl on his face that said, “If you call me out, I’ll bite you”. He took one of our free pens, and paused to stare at me. I didn’t say anything.

While I too wanted free stuff, I didn’t have his audacity, and thus I decided against following in his footsteps and grabbing all the free stuff I could find. That’s why I made my coworker do it for me. She brought me back silly putty, a boomerang, jelly beans, hair gel, a white board and marker, and a couple of other items that I’m sure I’m forgetting.

Overall, a good set of prizes, and a good day.

And now, a good night.