I attended my first job fair this past tuesday at the Mansion in Voorhees, NJ. Lots of women in scrubs and people dressed casual; only a few of us wore full suits. The event was hosted by Monster.com, a service that promotes its job fairs to appear as if dozens of eager companies would be waiting for prospective employees to arrive. There were about nine setups and one of them was an information service that was not recruiting.
When I made that hour drive, I wasn’t expecting to be hired on the spot and sure enough no offers came my way. I dropped off my resume with three companies, none of which were looking to hire writers or editors. The man who took attendee signatures at the door lauded the importance of networking, and normally I would agree, but in my case their were zero media companies in attendence that were seeking my kind. This job fair was all about management and sales, two areas I have no interest in. Overall, this job fair had to little to offer me and I can probably expect much of the same from the next one. Would I attend another job fair? Maybe. I want to try my hand at freelance writing–spent enough years in college preparing for the inevitability.
Posted by jonklangdon 