  OK, was talking to my boy Kaleb tonight, mentioned a recent career fair I'd been to here on campus, so here goes my take on it. Career Fairs are pretty much bullshit. I say pretty much, cause every once in awhile, it has to do something for someone, or else why would people still go? maybe it's like an urban legend for the unemployed college student, like "I know this guy, who knew this guy who's roommates dog's groomer got a job through one".
Anyways, so here was my experience at my most current Career Fair visit: I go in, dressed down by typical attendee standards, but dressed up by typical ComSci guy standards (slacks and a sportscoat, no tie, if you cared). I had my handful of resume's printed on the expensive, off-white paper that you're supposed to (who started that trend anyways? what difference does it really make over standard 20# paper? probably a paper manufacturer, greedy bastards). So I go and decide to whore myself out for a job op. Now if you've never been to one of these before, let me explain the setup to you: a really big open room, full of folding tables with big signs proclaiming the name of the company, and lots of free crap like pens and hats and stuff. There are usually 2-4 reps per company there to tell you how great the company is, and answer your questions. These are not the people you'd work with most of the time but H.R. people. My close friends know my feelings about H.R. people, but that's another story. So you go and say "Hi, I'm such and such, I'm pursuing my degree in such and such, and I'd like to work for your Company, or one of any company here who'll have me, I dont' really care".
They say "great, let me see your resume" and then either "thanks, we'll keep this around" or "we probably don't have much for you right now, but I'll hold on to it just in case". Depending on your major they may just laugh you out and throw poo at you. here's where it gets really annoying: case 1 - myself - B.S. in CS GPA of 3.11 - currently seeking my M.S. IN CS with GPA of 4.0 - here were the two most common answers for me - "We can't recruit for anything but entry level positions here, and we couldnt' do that for you, too much experience" and "wow, this looks great, but we don't have any openings for IT people, and you're probably not Management type". Wow.. neat... the first one really pisses me off, makes me think, you know, if your boss knew you passed up a willing experienced person who would work for entrylevel pay, would he fire you then or wait til your next performance eval? " but this isn't as bad as: case 2 - My sister - graduates this semester with her B.S. in history.
ya, history, I know, no job right? but get this - she is a member of 4 different honor societies, has a 3.9 GPA and could rock your fucking socks off in just about any academic endeavor she wanted to. Most well read person I know, and a grand employee at the library. Now, I know she's not the salesmen type, but I'm sure that your company could find some sort of position that she can handle.
Do you not have any clerks, analysts, or researchers at your company? Jeez. the worst part was, not only did she only get to hand over 1 resume, 4 people told her straight to her face to go away, or brushed her off. How great is that? Since half these companies can't afford new blood, they were probably there to build goodwill... not a great way to go about that. oh, and on our way out, I stopped by one last kiosk in hopes of gettign some kind of info - "we have intern positions for H.R. only" Christ. 
