Attempting to score at NSHMBA

Greetings from Cincinnati where I am attending the National Society of Hispanic MBA (pronounced nar-SHIM-bar) job fair. I woke up early yesterday morning and took a irect flight from to Cincinnati where I got a free cab ride to the Duke Convention Energy courtesy a recruiter who gave a presentation at Kenan-Flagler the night before and was on my flight also on his way to NSHMBA.

At the event yesterday, it was wall to wall recruiters and nonstop networking with them. I hit up the three companies that I talked to at the Atlanta job fair a month ago. I made yet another attempt to score with the world’s largest software company, and the attempt once again failed to result in success. I had more success with a couple of companies that I have been trying to get into including the online retailer, a wireless phone company from the Midwest, and a newspaper company that owns a portfolio of internet content web sites.

When the career fair ended, I went back to my hotel room to change into something only slightly more casual and returned to the area around the convention center for the receptions and parties. I went to the reception for the world’s largest software company where someone confirmed my suspicions that the company is hiring in its online division, and that the recruiter I interviewed with on Tuesday was blowing me off by telling me otherwise. I also went to a reception for a company that I will be interviewing with at Kenan-Flagler later on this month. But the main event was a dance party organized by a major retailer and major sponsor of NSHMBA. The entire Hyatt ballroom was decorated with items that bore the company’s red and white logo, which is a circle within another circle. Guests were given round magnets that they wore on their clothes that blink a red light. I met a girl from another business school who had on a tight red turtleneck and she strategically placed two magnets on each end of her breast. As we were talking,I found her “dots” to be quite distracting and at one point she said “hello my eyes are up here.” There were other guys coming up to her and offering to shake her hand, have their pictures taken with her, and one recruiter even gave her his business card jokingly told her to email her resume and write on the subject line “I am the girl with the blinking (expletive deleted).”

I returned to the job fair today to hit some of the companies that I did not talk to yesterday. I went up to a restaurant company from Orlando and while talking to the recruiters about a marketing position, I decided to take a gamble by disclosing that I had second round interview in March for a finance internship with the company. The gamble paid off; instead of coming across as unfocused, the recruiters were impressed at how much I already know about the firm. The recruiters gave me the email address of someone they want me to talk to (recruiters are usually reluctant to disclose contact information so getting an email address is usually a good sign) and a $5 gift card.