03 October 2013

Career Fair, a few weeks late

Some interest was expressed in my views on the dehumanization of career fairs because I mentioned that I had some. I don't really know if I do, or if I just got carried away on a wave of anti-establishment feelings that week. It happens. I do know that I feel career fairs normally reduce humans to a sheet of paper called a resume. This year we were reduced to a QR code that linked employers to an online profile where we should have uploaded our resume. Call me crazy, but I'm a little disconcerted when I reach for the handshake and in return am asked for my "RecPass" with no eye contact made whatsoever. I feel like I'm wearing a red shirt in Star Trek. Expendable.

I don't know. Maybe my qualms with the career fair are just manifestations of my own guilt that I have consistently chosen to spend my free time watching Portlandia and blogging about my feelings instead of teaching myself new coding languages or spending more hours than I can spare in a research lab. I lash out that resumes are "silly" and "unfair representations of actual human beings" because I don't want to admit my resume is sort of lame because I made it that way.

When it comes down to it, though, I will gladly take the choices I've made over any that may seem more practical and career oriented. I'm not living to build a resume.

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