From College to Cubicle

This week I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the ND Career Fair as a recruiter. I dreaded career fairs when I was actually looking for jobs. I hated trying to figure out what was going through the minds of recruiters, trying to look up every possible tip on getting a job, and awkwardly selling myself to people I highly doubted would remember me five minutes later.

From the other side of things I can say I was wrong on one thing: there are some people I remembered 5 minutes later… but in many cases that was not a good thing.

“So… I’m new to the career fair, can you tell me what I’m supposed to do?”

“What is Abbott?”

“I’m in the process of switching majors. All I know is I don’t want to be a finance major anymore, but I’m not sure what I’m switching to. Do you have any jobs that I might qualify for?”

Um… While these questions all help me figure out from the first question that I’m not talking to someone who actually wants a job with Abbott IT, I also felt bad for these students. Finding jobs is hard enough for people right now, and I have low hopes for those particular students’ job search. At the same time I know that I (and the portion of the ND world who ACTUALLY wants a job) spent at least a LITTLE bit of time figuring out which booths were worth going to!

The career fair taught me that effort truly pays off. There were some people that were so prepared with questions I felt like I was being interviewed! There were students who were sending thank you emails on their phones after every booth! There were some students with resumes that made me feel like I should be the one working for them!

Mendoza students are taught all sorts of tips for finding a job in the real world, and my experience on the other side of the career fair taught me just how valuable that advice can be. Well, how valuable it can be if people actually take the advice to heart…