Today’s career fairs seem anything but “fair” to me.
Have you noticed lately how every local TV news report has a weekly segment on a career or job fair? The footage may as well be recycled week after week: the camera pans over a long line wrapping around a corner. Then the reporter (always with surprise and a newsworthy sense of self-importance – almost as if he’s breaking a story as hot as Lewinsky and Clinton) marvels over the record attendance.
Um, is this really news? My God, half the country is unemployed, and people are lining up thinking they might land a job. Surprise! Someone give that reporter a raise.
My absolute favorite part is when the reporter corners one of the attendees and gets her to talk about how she plans to stand out from the crowd.
Oh no, wait, this is the best part: then that same person talks on camera about how she’s now begun to make friends in the job fair lines because they all recognize one another from the previous week’s job fair. Hmmm… it might be time to reevaluate that whole “standing out from the crowd” strategy.
stephenviscusi