It has been a long time since I went to a job fair. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did. I was informed of one recently and so yesterday I found myself attending the 6th Annual PICS MEGA JOB FAIR. The ads for it suggest all caps and bold are necessary. It ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and was located at the North Surrey Recreation Centre.
I went with Denis and the plan was to leave Vancouver around 2 p.m., spend an hour or so at the fair and then get the heck out of there.
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being Greatest Job Fair Ever, I would rate this one -700.
It started with us walking to the Burrard SkyTrain and getting on The Noisiest SkyTrain Car In the History of Forever. I swear there were hidden speakers piping in additional sounds of the train rattling down the track. At times it was difficult to have a conversation and we were sitting close enough to each other to have Eskimo relations. Even the recorded station arrival announcements were being drowned out. I suggested Denis stand up and use ASL so people would know what stations we were pulling into. Since we had to traverse the Expo Line nearly in its entirety, it meant we had to deal with this for 35 minutes.
Fortunately, the arena the fair was being staged in was located right next to the Surrey Central station. I think it took longer to exit the station, which is mysteriously built as if to emulate Cloud City from The Empire Strikes Back (read: really freakin’ up there), than it did to traverse the short expanse of sidewalk between it and the rec centre. With the smell of chlorine from an unseen swimming pool filling the warm summer air, we followed the helpful signs and entered the fair proper.
Ten minutes later we were on our way out.
Given that the economy is not exactly overflowing with jobs right now, my expectations were minimal. The exhibitors on hand fell into these categories:
- Colleges and universities I’ve mostly never heard of
- Jobs no one really wants
- Government jobs
- Recruiting agencies
#1 and #4 actually want to take money to you, which does not seem particularly in the spirit of a job fair to me, though maybe that’s just a case of being on the wrong side of the tables covered with informative and glossy pamphlets.
#3 had exhibits extolling the virtues of everything from working for the city of Surrey to joining the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canada Revenue Agency or helping out with WorkSafe BC.
#2 had some overlap with #4, mostly by having an exhibit for BC Corrections, one of the top jobs no one really wants. Mr. Lube and Safeway were also seductively offering the lifestyle of oil changes and stocking shelves to attendees.
We did one loop, insuring that we had seen every exhibit, then left, our freshly-printed resumes staying with us. We ended up returning briefly — to use the washroom, which turned out to be the most worthwhile part of the trip. We climbed back up into the upper reaches of Surrey Central station, where the upper atmosphere begins to thin and waited for one of the newer trains to arrive, since any one of them would be quieter than the tooth-rattling one we had arrived in. The first train to come into the station was an old one and Denis decreed it better to leave Surrey noisily now than less noisily 6 minutes later. I agreed. Fortunately the transit crew had remembered to oil the wheels on this train so it wasn’t that bad.
And that was it. We made the round trip (70 minutes of travel time) on a single transfer. There are no zany stories to report, no colorful characters to recall. It was a complete dud. But now I know about the modern state of job fairs and knowledge is power. Right now I’m feeling pretty powerful.
