Are Job Fairs Turning into a Waste of Time? (interview, application, employers)

[Jesse69]

I never got a job from a job fair, but my brother did.

[MSchemist80]

HR black hole. Any job search that has you dealing with HR is in general has a low probability of leading to being hired. It makes no difference if you apply online or in person there is still a greater than 99% chance your resume gets tossed, except you have wasted a whole day, gas, and a suit instead of clicking submit.

[Oberleutnant]

I was going to some so-called military friendly job fairs but so far it has born no fruit for me. There is another one next week but I may just skip it. A good chunk of the booths are not those seeking to employ but instead selling trade schools, offering vet services, etc. It may be for others but it is not what I'm looking for. And it seems the ones most eager to talk to attendees are those trying to snare folks to join commission only positions selling insurance and other financial products or to join some MLM scheme. There are also always police departments recruiting, something as a kid I thought would be cool to become, but now have no interest in doing. The last one I went to was mainly because Lockheed was there, and Lockheed has a lot of people in the area. But apparently the Lockheed rep was mainly there to talk about positions in Socal, and so it was all a waste of time. So the way I see is if you have nothing better to do it does not hurt to go to one, but don't bendover backwards driving for hours or going through some other big inconvenience to get to one.

[flyers29]

Of the legit companies there it seems that they just end up telling you to apply on the website. Hell, even the people there don't always offer much in the way of information about the company. Kind of wonder what the point of it is from their end.

[shroombeanie]

40 years young. Never been to a job fair, will never go to a job fair. Basically a contradiction in terms anyway.

From most of the comments here, I'm quite pleased with my intuition.

[lovetheduns]

Depending on the job you are looking for-- the generic job fairs may be a waste of time.

I went to one once at a Biotech company and they were looking to hire project managers, business analysts, scientists, and engineers-- it was a very successful event. A friend got a job there and I got a couple interviews (ended up taking a different offer).

Most of my friends who got their first jobs after college got them through job fairs run by their universities. But then again the "price of admission" was certain degree fields and certain GPAs.

But let's face it-- if the job you are looking for is one that can be done by the masses-- then you are going to have a tough time standing out at a job fair.

The only job fairs that I know that

[goyanks57]

For those who care, here's an article from our local newspaper about the job fair. It really paints an ugly picture for job seekers in my community.

http://www.chieftain.com/business/lo...cc4c002e0.html

[Randomdude]

Originally Posted by goyanks57

This morning, I attended a job fair that was sponsored by our local chamber of commerce. There was one manufacturing company there that was looking to hire about 150 people to work at their local plant, and there were about 30 additional booths set up. I was only there for about an hour, and there were easily 500 people inside the room where it was being held, and there were at least another 500 waiting to get inside!

5 or 6 of the booths were occupied by degree mills (University of Phoenix, DeVry, Intellitec, etc.), another 5 were occupied by temp agencies, 10 were occupied by nursing homes and hospitals, and 3 were occupied by call centers. The rest of them were occupied by legitimate companies, but only 2 or 3 of them were actually looking to hire people.

In the last year and a half, I've gone to 5 job fairs with hopes of landing a job or internship, but every time, I've walked out feeling pretty disappointed. I know times are tough, but why do organizations even bother with setting up these job fairs when no one is hiring?

I had the same experience with job fairs, but this was back in the area of 2004.

I found they are largely filled with pyramid schemes like Avon, crap minimum wage jobs, for profit schools, and maybe one or two decent companies who are there just to collect resumes for their filing cabinet.

I dont even bother with them.

[MerlinOliversData1984]

Originally Posted by slackjaw

And slightly off topic (yeah I know me going off topic, unbelievable) have you guys ever seen those pictures of job fairs in China? That is freakin nuts man.





What is interesting is that all those applicants are actually for a single job that this woman here is hiring for:

One Job?! With that kind of overcrowding, you probably will get typhus or other overcrowding illnesses

[annerk]

Job fairs hosted by for-profit companies are generally a huge waste of time.

Job fairs hosted by municipalities or charitable service organizations often produce real jobs.