People in every direction

Greetings from the National Black MBA Association job fair in Atlanta. Earlier today me and a classmate flew down here from RDU, took a thirty minute ride on the Marta to the Georgia World Congress Center, and spent the next six hours hoping from booth to booth, isle to isle, talking to different companies about job prospects, and networked with folks from MBA schools around the country.

As I methodically worked the isles, with my portfolio and package of printed resumes, I once again began to notice just what a difference one year makes. If I had attended this a year ago, I would have stopped at every booth and tried to talk to every recruiter possible. Today I mostly concentrated my efforts on companies in industries that I have worked in such as telecommunications services and equipment providers, internet services and software companies. There were three companies that I was especially interested in and if all I did was talk to these three companies, it would have made the trip worthwhile.

The first is the world’s largest software company and a company that recruits at Kenan-Flagler. It had a very noticeable presence at the fair. I got on line and waited for about five minutes and gave the recruiter my well rehearsed schtick. I then mentioned that I had already dropped my resume last week and was waiting to hear as to whether I have made the closed interview list. I then asked if there was anything I could do at the fair to secure an interview via a different route. He then told me that there was nothing I could do (which was contrary to what I was told by a Kenan-Flagler alum who showed up at the presentation last week) and the resume that I had just handed him was going to be given to the same recruiter who is responsible for recruiting from Kenan-Flagler. I walked away feeling a bit disappointed, that was until I turned the corner and saw the second company.

I did not know that the second company was going to be at the job fair. It does not recruit at Kenan-Flagler. It is one of the (if not the) biggest player in the field I am trying to get into. I was telling a classmate yesterday that if this company were to come to Kenan-Flagler for a presentation, it would have received three times the number of people who showed up for the world’s largest software company two weeks ago. Surprisingly this company does not have as commanding of a presence at the fair as the world’s largest software company. Perhaps this is consistent with its “keep everything simple” approach. I spoke to someone at the booth and the conversation did not proceed as smoothly as I had hoped. At the point when I told him why I wanted to work at his company, I felt he was laughing at me. He then looked at my resume, pulled out a booklet, flipped to a certain page, and circled two positions that he felt I would qualify for. He wrote his name and email address on the booklet and told me to look over the job descriptions before emailing him on how to our next step. He announced that he was writing down a plus sign on the resume to increase the odds that someone would give me a call.

The third company is an online retailer. I spoke to a recruiter who said I would be perfect for a particular position and referred me to another representative from that company who actually currently works in that position. He asked me about some of the methods I used during my internship to find out information about the company’s competitors to write the competitive analysis report that I handed in. Turns out this man’s is a new hire into that company. He was actually hired away from the world’s largest software company where all he did was write competitive analysis reports. His last question was for me to tell him what I knew about the company and after giving him my stellar answer, he smiled and said he is often surprised at how little research some students have done prior to walking up to the booth. He told me I might be expecting a phone call.

As the day went on the bag I was carrying got heavier and heavier. Companies were giving away stuff left and right. One top tier investment banking firm gave away a square shaped digital clock that displays temperature, calendar, or time of day, depending on which side of the square is facing up. Three car companies were present and each brought along display vehicles. There were also booths representing business schools such as Wharton, Darden, Kenan-Flagler, the University of Maryland, to name a few. I spotted the directors of admissions from Kenan-Flagler and Darden at their respective tables.

Later on today I am hanging out with the boyfriend of a Kenan-Flagler student whom I met during the summer. He works in Atlanta. I also plan to show my face at a Kenan-Flagler alumni reception at the CNN Center before returning to the airport to catch the last flight back to RDU. I am personally hoping that I will get bumped from that flight so that the airline will pay for me to stay the night and give me a free voucher I can use to come back to Atlanta again in the future. I even packed a change of clothes and my toiletries just in case.