Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition Charles Shaw – Two Buck Chuck

A Trap Awaits You at National Career Fairs

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Posted by Mr. Crumb on Jun 3, 2009 in Events | 32 comments

As many of you know, this economy has not been going so well. It is by far the worst recession I have experienced in my life (not like I’ve been through many). I was laid off from my job in December 2008 and I haven’t been able to find a job since. My resume has been going out, but no one wants to reach out to me. I knew I had to do something different because if I keep doing the same thing over and over, I would be pretty stupid to expect different results. My conclusion was that i needed to be a little more proactive and hit a career fair. As I do with most of my inquiries, I logged on to google, and typed in “career fair los angeles”. Lo and behold, I found one coming up at the end of May. It was hosted my National Career Fairs at the Raddison in Los Angeles adjacent to LAX.

I called up one of my buddies who was also looking for work. We made the effort to look really spiffy and drove out to the job fair. The first thing we noticed was that there were a lot of people there. Not a surprise for California as we have an 11% unemployment rate. There was a very large line to get in, but we figured it would be worth it. As we waited in line, a lady came up and made an announcement for a job opening in the city of Orange that required a person to be fluent in Spanish and English. I don’t recall the position but I ignored it as it only paid $11/hr. So far, I’m not too impressed with what was being offered. Little did I know, the types of jobs inside the fair would be far, far worse.

As we walked through the doors, the first display I saw was for Pampered Chef. Immediately I said to myself “oh no!”. For those not familiar with Pampered Chef, it is a company that recruits people to sell kitchen ware. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, my wife and I had purchased items from Pampered Chef in the past and we love their products. However, seeing that display struck a fear in me that all we were going to see at this job fair was a bunch of Amway sale scams and pyramid schemes. Sure enough as we went through the room, we saw Mary Kay, Avon, and other crazy selling companies. It became obvious to me that this fair was nothing more than a big scam. National Career Fairs charges these scam companies to display themselves at the fair. They are willing to pay because they know there are going to be tons of people attending the fair looking for honest work. One of these pyramid schemers was very bright. He saw us walk into the hotel and approached us with his propaganda. He avoided paying National Career Fairs by giving his material to everyone walking into the hotel. I had to give him credit for being the smartest company rep at the fair.

If you are looking for a job, do not go to any fair hosted by National Career Fairs. To be on the safe side, always try to find a list of companies attending a job fair before going. If it is not displayed on their web site, chances are, they don’t want you to see which companies are attending. In that case, it is better to not waste your time dressing nice for them.

- The Crumb

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