Monday, September 26, 2005

Things look different from the other side, let me tell you. I remember fretting over the type of paper on which I would print my resume, grooming the zinger questions I would level to wow potential employers, carefully choosing between pomade or gel to augment the marketability of my hair, and generally adding to the collective neurosis of the student body. That’s the career fair for you, I guess–a flea market of ideas and the eager applicants who would embrace those ideas or, at the very least, endure them for a year or two.

Do you know what happened to the resumes I collected today? The good, the bad, the ones on 32-lb ivory paper, the few printed on bright whites stolen from public copiers? They’re sitting in a single pile on my desk, somewhere in the general vicinity between my monitor and my lunch napkin, and my fervent wish is that the cleaning staff won’t mistakenly toss the stack tonight.

In the end, I don’t believe employers give two shits and a tchotchke about the content of your mousse and, to a certain extent, even your qualifications. It’s the personality that remains with the resume. Sure, there’s a minimum level of competency required, but we’re talking about a job fair at Northwestern. It’s a carnival of competency, a poundhouse for careerists, where the overlooked question is whether we will find something we value intrinsically, rather than something we can just do.

Originally I wanted to paint the typology of job expo attendees for you–stoner, hot chick, leather portfolioso, that kind of thing–but my eyes are already closing. I must go downtown tomorrow. My colleague is familiar with the ways of art students, and she recommends I wear all black. I think I will make do with a hat braided from the wool of free-range yak.