I thought I had it all wrong


I figured my job hunting skills were somehow lacking. I've been on the hunt for the better part of 2+ months, and still have yet to have a solid lead.

To reinvigorate myself, my wife and I decided to have my 4 month old start going back to his grandmother's during the AM, so I can concentrate and get my grind on. I have an interview tomorrow that I am kind of iffy on, and I went to a job fair today. At Rider University, no less.

Now, the first thing that threw me off was not the facility or the people running this thing, but the people attending. I took the NJ Transit 606 line, which had me riding for 40 minutes on a nice and toasty bus. When I hit the button for Rider, I saw like 6 or so heads stand up with me. I'm like, OK the two older heads (man and woman) are probably going to this fair as well, but I'm guessing the dude in the fatigues with the dreads and the guy with the basketball jersey were going to class or something. Yeah, no, they were attending this function as well! Now, I don't own a three-piece suit, but I had my nice white shirt, khaki pants and a smooth tie to boot. Even got props from this Army nigga who was surprised that the other coons came so underdressed.

In any case, anytime your local pop radio station is running a "win a prize pack" booth at a job fair, something might be off. I took the first seminar, which started before the official gotime of this fair. It was on "Job Searching via the Internet". What did I learn? That not only is Monster.com a dope resource, but you can put your resume on it, and have search agents email you new jobs! I mean, no disrespect to those who aren't versed in Internet job searching, but I've been doing this for the better part of 5 years now. I got that down pat.


So after this bit finishes, I went into the main room and looked around. The one thing about this fair that I thought was odd is that they seemed to be giving away more free shit (more on that later) than giving away jobs. Most of them would take your resume, but not discuss new job leads. I got a lot of "check the website" remarks, which seemed to be the phrase of the day. I know that job applications and such have gone online, but what's the point of you setting up a table at a job fair to tell me about this?

At the end of my time (about 2 hours into this thing), I cut out. I got some good leads, will be getting some calls back, and figured I might as well go catch the bus at a reasonable hour. I happen upon this 19 y/o kid with rolled up Marlboro Menthol Lights (he packed and rolled up the ends before placing them in this ratty Winston container, a job that takes too much effort), going through a bag of schwag from this event: this punk grabbed everything from Walgreen's-logo playing cards, a pen/flashlight set from AAA Financial (which he got for filling out a credit card app), a faux-leather money pouch, 2 circular mint tins (with mints) and a host of other nonsensical items. He got no leads, no cards from prospective employers, I don't think he even spoke to a single person about a job. I mean, let him play his own game, but it's a slap in the face to guys like me, who are trying to feed his family and find a quality job, and you have kids like him, milking the system, flashing his fucking Family First card to these toothless assholes who cracked up at every ridiculous piece of bullshit this kid pulled out of his Weidel Realtors bag.

To say the least, I am tired of ignorant people clouding up the job circuit. I saw an article yesterday about employers hiring more people in Dec. 2006. I wonder where they are...
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can imagine it's a hard time for you. I wish I could offer more encouraging advice. All I can say is that you are a smart and talented person and people need to recognize :P