Reading my Sunday newspaper yesterday reminded me of how Career Fairs do little to substantially increase local employment. It seems that no one is willing to say this, and a lot fewer are even willing to believe it, but I know it to be all but a fact.

After spending 20+ years in the news business, and another 20+ years as a personal marketing specialist helping potential hires by writing upscale resumes, I can relate my experience with authority.

You might think that after helping 5,300+ clients get on with moving on and moving up in their careers that I could produce at least one client who has benefited from attending a Career Fair. I can not. This is why I caution any client who gets all excited and goosey about attending Career Fairs. I do not want their disappointment to affect my marketing plan to help them achieve their goals.

In revealing this apparent incongruity for the first time publicly, it is important to note that I am in the high end of the resume writing business. Virtually 97% of my 5,300+ clients during my 20-plus-year career are executives, professionals and managers earning between $40,000 and $350,00 annually who are already in management, want to be in management, or in sales and/or marketing.

Career fairs are all about first jobs and entry level career jobs that do not pay all that well, so they do little for folks who have already been in the marketplace, enjoyed some success, and want to keep moving up the corporate ladder, or any other ladder of their choice.

This makes a lot of sense when you examine who is involved in putting on Career Fairs, and what they expect to get for their investment. I am not talking about the potential hires, or anyone looking for a job or a better opportunity.

I am talking about businesses and organizations, large facility managers, and big advertising media, usually the dominant daily newspaper in the community. Nothing meets their profit needs, their publicity needs, and their public service needs like Career Fairs. It has become almost a rite of passage for these special interest groups in our society.

Let us start with businesses and organizations. Should you stroll down to a Career Fair in your community, and talk to a business representative at a snappy booth display, you will quickly pick up on the fact that the well dressed person is not the person you expected.

You knew going there that if Microsoft was a participant Bill Gates would probably not be there, but you secretly hoped he would. Later you came to realize that the person a major corporation sends to represent them at these Career Fairs is usually the most expendable person available.

This is why they smile a lot, take your resume (sometimes they do not), and tell you very little about what the company is really doing. Major companies that are cooking the books (using unacceptable accounting practices to inflate revenue and profits in order to increase stock prices so executives suck money out faster), and in worse shape than they want their stockholders and the public to know, would be at a Career Fair putting on their best face.

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next