2000Z-71
Member
Well I just wasted my time, money and gas this morning by going to a job fair in my quest to end my unemployment. The job fair was promoted by the Arizona Republic (Phoenix's major fishwrap) and Career Builder and promoted as being for technical/professionals. There were a dozen different categories advertised including design/development, civil engineering, project management, and construction management.
I'm skeptical of job fairs to begin with, usually a lot of minimum wage, sales and independent contracting promotions. With the pre-qualification and requirements for attendees, I thought this one might be a little different. My first clue should have been while I was waiting in line that stretched out past the pre-function space, through the lobby, out the door and around the corner of the building was that there was a steady stream of people leaving the building.
I finally get up to the registration desk and actually had to argue with the receptionist that a Bachelor of Architecture and 15 years experience in construction management is a technical background and I should be let in. Get through that to be handed a sheet with the list of employers at the fair, a total of 5. They were all very highly specialized defense contractors primarily looking for IT geeks. Get into the ballroom and it is a section that is partioned off and is only 30'x60' space.
The one I did talk to was looking for airborne qualified stag line jumpers. I thought what the hell, it's been a long time but I went through Airborne School, for a few hundred bucks I'll go jump out of a plane again. Nope, minimum hourly wage jumping with prototype parachutes in the R&D stages. Yep that's right; part time, minimum wage and no benefits for being a test dummy on an experimental parachute.
So in short, 2-3,000 people show up for a job fair with only 5 prospective employers that are not offering anything that was advertised. A lot of extremely pissed off people and disgusted people out in the parking lot as I was leaving. I feel like sending the Republic a bill for my time and gas.
I'm skeptical of job fairs to begin with, usually a lot of minimum wage, sales and independent contracting promotions. With the pre-qualification and requirements for attendees, I thought this one might be a little different. My first clue should have been while I was waiting in line that stretched out past the pre-function space, through the lobby, out the door and around the corner of the building was that there was a steady stream of people leaving the building.
I finally get up to the registration desk and actually had to argue with the receptionist that a Bachelor of Architecture and 15 years experience in construction management is a technical background and I should be let in. Get through that to be handed a sheet with the list of employers at the fair, a total of 5. They were all very highly specialized defense contractors primarily looking for IT geeks. Get into the ballroom and it is a section that is partioned off and is only 30'x60' space.
The one I did talk to was looking for airborne qualified stag line jumpers. I thought what the hell, it's been a long time but I went through Airborne School, for a few hundred bucks I'll go jump out of a plane again. Nope, minimum hourly wage jumping with prototype parachutes in the R&D stages. Yep that's right; part time, minimum wage and no benefits for being a test dummy on an experimental parachute.
So in short, 2-3,000 people show up for a job fair with only 5 prospective employers that are not offering anything that was advertised. A lot of extremely pissed off people and disgusted people out in the parking lot as I was leaving. I feel like sending the Republic a bill for my time and gas.
