Just a warning, this post is somewhat of a rant.
Last Wednesday, as many Business and LAS majors know, was the Career Fair. As I walked up the steps to Hilton Coliseum in my ‘professional business attire’ and resumes in hand, I hoped to make a good impression on potential employers.
Having been to the Career Fair before, I knew what to expect; booths upon booths of recruiters talking to students hoping to land that perfect internship.
Well let me just say this. If your ‘perfect internship’ is to do entry-level sales for some company in Iowa, then the Career Fair is the place for you to be. It felt as if every company, no matter its size or prestige, was looking for ‘sales’ people. I didn’t matter if I walked up to them and said I was interested in public relations or marketing, sales was all they had to offer.
So, with that said, if you’re ambitions are beyond or different than that of sales, what’s the point of the career fair? To make matters worse, the few companies that do offer opportunities outside of the sales realm will (more often than not) give you a slip of paper that says where to apply online. Which again begs the question, what’s the point? If I can apply to the company from the comfort of my own home, why put forth the effort to talk to recruiters in the first place?
And let’s say I showed up at the career fair in t-shirt in jeans? Part of me feels like it wouldn’t make that much of a difference. The ‘recruiters’ at the fair are often sent there for one purpose: to recruit people for very specific positions in, you guessed it, sales. When asked about other opportunities within the company, many of them have no idea. They again, direct you to their website. So I’m thinking that as long as I have a killer resume, once that gets to the right person, the impression I made at the Career Fair won’t be that important.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know there are a number of opportunities for people at events such as this, but it’s disappointing that at a university of such stature, that better companies or opportunities are not available.
I find this same trend to be true even within my own major. The Greenlee School of Journalism sends out regular emails of potential job and internship opportunities. While scrolling through the list, 95 percent of these listings are for small media companies in Iowa and do not encourage students to expand their horizons.
Speaking from experience, the two internships I completed out in New York were all from my own doing. The internships resulted from Internet research and cold-calling companies that looked interesting. I was not directed by an adviser to outside sources or encouraged to look outside the Greenlee internship database. I find it sad that the Greenlee School is not pushing its students to think outside the box, when I know (without sounding overly confident) that those internships and the fact that they took place in NYC set me apart from many other candidates my age.
At the end of the day, the career fair is not all bad. There are, in fact, a few companies that offer decent opportunities and I know a number of students who have landed internships from such an event. However, I guess I just wish that there were more opportunities, or variety of opportunities, for someone interested in marketing, public relations…or anything but sales. The ”Business/LAS” title encompasses so many majors that I just wish there would be companies for all areas of study.
On the other hand, I did have one interview with a company I was interested in and it seemed to go well. I just may have to eat my words afterall….
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I agree with you, the career fair was disappointing, to say the least. Most of the recruiters were unable to give adequate information and kept passing on the slip with a website for applying. I must admit, I arrived somewhat late (in jeans and a dress shirt), so I was not overly offended when more than one were dismissive. But honestly, one place was downright rude.
The Target reps and a guy from General Mills were helpful, though.
I heard the same thing from a lot of Greenlee people that went. I chose to skip it this time around. I’d like to think I can find more creative ways to find a job. I think it’s hard to approach a random company and try to determine if they have any communications/marketing type of jobs. They’re always going to pretend they have something for you, even it may be the last thing you plan to do.