Comments on: Job Fair Recruiting Fail

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:14:34 +0000

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I was ticked off to hear it, and I’m glad that I wasn’t there to let something slip, because it would have been rough.
And AlphaRaider may be correct, but that’s not the one I was talking about (but there was more than one of them? WOW!).

Keep up the fight against this kind of stuff, people. We don’t need any help making HR/recruiting look bad!

By: alphaRaider

alphaRaider — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:50:49 +0000

I was at the same career fair and I bet I know the booth you were talking about.

Boeing.

They were so rude to all the students. Everyone around campus says that’s the last place they would work at.

If its that bad and bureaucratic at the booth, god knows what it would be like working for that awful company.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:49:36 +0000

Great article Ben. From what I have heard, students aren’t very satisfied when they walk out of career fairs and it’s not difficult to understand why (esp. with the 2nd example). I believe Career Fairs are a waste of time in most cases and are viewed mainly as a PR move by most companies. How often do we hear companies telling students to “apply online” when they try and give them their resumes. Besides, is a 2 minute conversation really a good way to evaluate talent anyways?

By: funnelthru

funnelthru — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:23:44 +0000

Sadly, this happens all the time.

Thing it the guy in the 2nd example may have treated almost everyone like the 1st guy if he didn’t have a ton of projects/work waiting for him. People at job fairs are at the mercy of their organization. The employer can picked trained people who are focused on the task, or pull out any available personnel who are probably working overtime to make things work.

Still – no excuses. Like tlcolson said above it is a really bad reflection of the employer.

By: tlcolson

tlcolson — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:29:12 +0000

I’ve seen this happen more often than not. I don’t believe its a lack of interest, its some Sr. level manager who sends out Line Supervisor John to man the Job Fair booth – and the poor guy has no idea what he’s doing.

He’s not been trained to sell the company, and he’s not particularly happy to be there when he’s got 6 projects waiting on him when he gets back to the office.

Or, on the flip side: the secretary has been sent – because “we do so many of these things, who cares who goes as long as we are there”

Its a sign that the company isn’t particularly interested in hiring. I say don’t take it personally and be glad you know now, instead of 6 months from now, that there’s something broken at ABC Company.

By: Bonita

Bonita — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:45:50 +0000

Wow. Recruiters need to treat every candidate as if they are a potential customer. It is easier said than done at work with a million other things going on, but it’s SO easy to do at a job fair. No excuses. That’s terrible.