对于求职者们来说，招聘会似乎具有不可思议的作用，能够帮助他们找到合适的工作。但是实际上，招聘会所起到的“作用”只不过是分散求职者的精力罢了。从表面上来看，Terryn Barill在她最近的专栏中对招聘会所做的分析似乎已经让大家对招聘会的有关事实有了一定的了解。但是，她在专栏中所做的一些假定同样是危险的，有可能会使求职者失去在一家合适的公司找到工作的机会。招聘会本身并不会毁掉求职者的职业生涯，但是它们会分散求职者的精力，让求职者们无法把精力集中到能够帮助他们找到合适的工作的真正有意义的求职活动中去。
我认为，Barill在她的专栏中所分析的“事实”可能是对招聘会的理解的更大的误区。
误区1：招聘会能够让求职者接触到大量的招聘人员
误区：“对于企业的招聘人员来说，招聘会为他们提供了在尽可能短的时间内接触尽可能多的应聘者的机会。对于应聘者来说，招聘会为他们提供了接触到大量的招聘人员的机会。”
事实：Barill认为在招聘会上能够接触到大量的个人和公司是一件好事，而这正是问题的根源。
让我们来看看招聘会在企业的招聘过程中到底占有怎样的分量。有调查显示，管理人员们认为个人推荐的人选是最佳的招聘人选。有40%到70%的工作位置是被个人推荐的人选所获得的，而不是通过广告、简历等方式获得的。尽管企业通过猎头所招聘的员工数量较少，但是当他们通过猎头招聘时他们在每个人身上的花费却更多。这是为什么呢？因为猎头们本身就是最大的个人联系人。他们手中掌握着大量高质量的业内联系人的资料，所以他们收取的费用就相对更高。通过广告和招聘会的方式，企业可以接触到大量的费用低廉的联系人——但是这些联系人的质量也比较低。
建议：在参加招聘会前一定要考虑清楚。优秀的联系网络是建立在强大的人际关系基础之上的，而不是建立在那些掌握着大量的不熟悉的人的信息的短期联系人基础之上的。你在招聘会上见到的人不太可能帮助你找到一份好的工作。事实上，他还有可能使你失去好的工作机会。稍后我将和大家进一步探讨这个问题。
误区2：在招聘会上，你可以在一天之内接触三百个雇主
误区：“在招聘会上，你可以在一天之内接触三百个雇主，但要想接触到三千个雇主就不切实际了。”
事实：让我们来认真思考一下。你真的可能在一天之内接触到三百个雇主吗？即使你把这个数字降低到一百个，假设一个招聘会的时间为六个小时的话，你同每个雇主接触的时间只有3.6分钟。（更不用说，如果在招聘会上逗留六个小时的时间来同那么多的雇主接触，应聘者的体力和精力根本就不可能吃得消了。）相信你的常识：这么短的时间根本不足以进行有意义的接触。
建议：与其在招聘会上同雇主进行这种没有什么意义的接触，求职者倒不如访问一下各家公司的网站。你可以在那里更为简便的提交自己的简历，既节省时间又节省精力。与在招聘会场中穿梭相比，通过网站你可以对用人公司又更多更全面的了解，也就能够为是否到某家公司应聘做出正确的决定。
误区3：招聘会给了求职者“发光”的机会
误区：“招聘会不是‘见面会’。它为求职者们提供了多重的面试机会，使求职者的能力能够得到迅速的评估。这就给了求职者们‘发光’的机会。”
事实：尽管Barill说这番话完全是出于好意，但是求职者们想要在招聘会上得到用人单位迅速的评估并且得到‘发光’的机会显然是不可能的。首先，正如她在自己文章的其他部分所指出的，求职者在招聘会上所接触到的用人单位的人员很可能不是这些单位的招聘经理。（即使是的话，这些招聘经理也不可能有时间去更多的了解求职者。这可能也正是他们为什么不会在招聘会上浪费时间的原因。）求职者所接触到的只是招聘经理的助手，这些助手在用人招聘方面缺乏经验，根本就不知道什么是“发光”。
建议：要避免你会被迅速评估的正式接触。这其中包括通过广告递交简历以及打电话进行接触。因为求职者通过这些方式所接触的很可能是招聘经理的助手。要寻找同招聘经理直接接触的机会。例如，你可以让一个朋友邀请你去他工作的地方拜访。然后，你们可以在一家能够偶然与CEO相遇的的咖啡厅吃午餐。这可能会给你带来机会。
误区4：求职者最大的希望就是下一次面试机会。
误区：“尽管有的公司会在招聘会上给求职者提供工作机会，对于求职者们来说，最大的希望就是下一次面试机会了。”
事实：当人们在谈到找工作的问题时谈到“希望”一词时，他们真正谈到的是对求职过程失去了控制。在招聘会上，求职者是没有任何控制力的。他们在一家又一家的用人单位之间穿梭，希望自己能够表现出与其他竞争者相比的某些过人之处，给用人单位的代表留下印象，而这些用人代表在自己公司中的地位并不高，根本没有决定聘用谁的权利。在招聘会上，求职者们最大的希望就是不要被用人单位排斥了。
前面我曾经说到过，招聘会可能会使求职者失去好的工作机会。实际上，会使求职者失去好的工作机会的是那些浅薄的联系人。那些在招聘会上收简历的人虽然没有能力去真正对求职者做出评估，但是他们手中却握有给你的简历评估的权力——要知道这些简历是要进入用人单位人事部门的数据库的。这会使你失去进一步的面试机会。这是很多人事部门都拥有的拒绝权。
建议：最好不要让人事经理的助手影响到你的求职过程。几乎所有人都知道直接同招聘经理进行接触要好得多，但是几乎所有人在实际的求职过程中都忽视了这一点，因为同人事经理接触要比同招聘经理接触简单。但是，如果你在一名招聘经理那里遭到了拒绝，你在其他的招聘经理那里还有机会。如果你在招聘会上遭到了人事经理的排斥的话，你那份遭到了差评的简历可能会使你在整个公司中失去任何的机会。
误区5：在招聘会上，求职者可以找到招聘广告之外的机会
误区：“如果你想要了解多方信息，建立联系网，获得招聘广告之外的工作机会，招聘会是极佳的选择。”
事实：招聘会上的招聘信息都已经是过时的信息了。通常，招聘会只是用人单位的最后一次招聘活动。当一些求职者还在招聘会上浪费时间，把自己的简历和命运交到缺乏经验的人事助手的手中时，另外一些求职者已经坐在招聘经理的办公室里，向他们展示自己胜任工作的能力了。这就是竞争中的差距。
谈到建立联系网的问题，让我们来考虑一下联系一些低级的人事助手和其他的求职者到底有多大的价值。所有的求职者都在寻找好的工作机会，别人怎么可能把真正好的工作机会介绍给你呢？不要在这方面毫无意义的浪费时间了。
建议：不要把时间浪费在人事助手出没的地方，到招聘经理和他们手下的员工所在的地方去：去职业会议、贸易展示会，去参加培训课程。当然要带上一份简历，但首先要做的是交一些朋友。不要上来就询问工作机会，要先了解公司的情况，这才是明智的。只有这样你才能够真正获得适合自己的工作机会。
Job fairs are portrayed as one of the magic cures for job hunters, but they’re actually nothing but a distraction that sucks up people’s energy. On the surface, Terryn Barill’s recent column seems to illuminate the myths surrounding job fairs. Off the bat, I agree with Barill completely: Job fairs are meat markets.
However, she makes some dangerous assumptions that could kill your chance of getting a good job with the right company. Job fairs by themselves aren’t going to ruin your career. But they will distract you from focusing on smart job hunting that will land you the right job.
I’m afraid her truths are just more myths. The first is the biggest one.
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The first of two parts
The first five myths will be discussed in this article. The remainder will be discussed in a follow-up installment next week.
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Myth: Job fairs allow you to meet a glut of hiring employers
Myth: “For the corporate recruiter, job fairs offer an opportunity to reach interviewing terminal velocity—the highest possible number of prospects in the shortest possible amount of time. For applicants, job fairs provide an opportunity to meet a large number of hiring employers.”
Truth: This is where the trouble starts, with the assumption that meeting lots of people and companies is a good thing. I agree that the experience is terminal, because while you may be meat when you enter the fair, you could wind up dead meat by the time you leave.
Consider where job fairs fall out in the hierarchy of recruiting. Studies show that managers think personal referrals are the best source of good hires (e.g., “Still Hiring—But Wanting the Human Touch,” by Tom Pohlmann, Forrester Research, 2002). Somewhere between 40 and 70 percent of jobs are found and filled through personal contacts—not through ads, resumes, or job postings. While companies hire relatively few people through headhunters, they spend more per head when they use headhunters than any other source of hires. Why? Because headhunters are the ultimate personal contact. They have lots of very high-quality industry contacts, and that’s what justifies their high fees. At the other end of the spectrum we have want ads and job fairs, which deliver daunting numbers of contacts inexpensively—but they’re low-quality contacts.
Suggestion: Think twice when you consider the conventional wisdom about job fairs. A good network of contacts is based on strong relationships, not on ephemeral contacts with lots of people you don’t really know. The people you will meet at a job fair are not likely to help you land a good job. In fact, one quick, superficial contact made at a job fair can cost you a good job. I’ll talk about that more in a minute.
Myth: You can cover a job fair with 300 employers in one day
Myth: “You can feasibly cover a job fair with 300 employers in one day. You can’t cover one with 3,000 employers, so do your homework.”
Truth: Think about that. You’re really going to cover 300 employers in one day? Even if you slice it down to 100, a six-hour job fair will allow you 3.6 minutes for each employer. (Not to mention, if you spend anywhere near six hours at a job fair you will get dizzy and pass out.) Trust your common sense: That’s not enough time for a meaningful exchange.
Suggestion: Visit the companies’ Web sites instead. You can submit your resume there much more easily, save your shoe leather, and save your sanity. You will learn lots more on those Web sites than you will trolling booths at a fair, and you will develop sound reasons for deciding whether a company is right to pursue. Your investigations should lead you to one-on-one conversations with people affiliated with your target companies and long, comfortable conversations with peers—not meaningless key word chats with recruitment-booth rats.
Myth: Job fairs offer a chance to “shine”
Myth: “Job fairs are not ’get acquainted sessions.’ They are multiple interview sessions where candidates are sized up quickly. You are being evaluated—it is your chance to shine’”
Truth: Though Barill’s message is well intentioned, it’s patently impossible to be sized up quickly, get evaluated, and have a chance to “shine.” First, as she points out elsewhere in her article, the company people you will meet are not likely to be hiring managers. (Even if they were, they’d have no time to learn much about you. That’s probably why they don’t waste their time at job fairs.) You’re meeting greenhorn HR clerks who don’t know what “shine” is.
Suggestion: Avoid formal encounters where you will be sized up quickly. These include submitting your resume to an ad and getting screened on the phone. Note that all of these encounters likely involve personnel clerks. Seek out opportunities to meet casually with a manager before you subject yourself to a cursory review by a clerk. For example, get a friend to invite you to visit him at his office. Have lunch in the cafeteria where you can meet the boss casually. Talk shop. Exchange insights on the work you all do. That’s how to get sized up accurately.
Myth: The most you can hope for is another interview
Myth: “While some companies make offers at job fairs, it is much more likely that the most you can hope for is another interview.”
Truth: Any time someone talks about “hope” in the context of job hunting, what he or she is really talking about is loss of control over the process. At a job fair, the job hunter has zero control. You wander from booth to booth, hoping to out-shine thousands of other sides of beef and impress low-level company representatives who have no power to hire you. The most you can hope for at a job fair is not to get blackballed.
Earlier I said that job fairs can cost you good jobs. Actually, it’s superficial contacts that can cost you a job. While the resume-collectors at job fairs aren’t qualified to really evaluate you, they are empowered to put a big fat X on your resume, which then goes into the HR department’s database. If you come along months later as a result of a good personal contact inside the company, HR could use that X to prevent you from interviewing further. That’s the kind of rejection power many HR departments have.
Suggestion: You are better off not alerting HR clerks to your interest in their company. Almost everyone knows it’s a far better thing to go directly to a hiring manager, but almost everyone ignores that wisdom because it’s just easier to go to HR. HR is the big candidate clearinghouse. If a manager rejects you, you are still free to approach other managers. If HR blackballs you at a job fair, your X-marked resume can keep you blackballed throughout the company.
Myth: Job fairs are a great place to find unadvertised openings
Myth: “Job fairs are excellent places to network and exchange information regarding where openings are and aren’t.”
Truth: Any job openings advertised at job fairs are already old news. Job fairs are often a company’s last recruitment resort. While a personnel jockey is scanning your resume at the job fair booth, my candidate (or some other headhunter’s) is sitting in the hiring manager’s office demonstrating how she’s going to do the job profitably for the manager. That’s who you’re competing with.
As for networking, consider the value of networking with lowly personnel clerks and other job hunters. How likely is another fair attendee to cue you in to a really good job, when he’s looking for the same thing? Think before you invest your time just because everyone else is doing it.
Suggestion: Skip the places where HR clerks hang out, and go where the hiring managers and their employees go: professional conferences, trade shows, and training courses. Yes, bring a resume, but first make some friends. Don’t ask for a job; ask for the gold ring that smart headhunters grab: insight about the person’s company and work. That’s what leads to real relationships, real personal contacts, and valuable personal referrals to hiring managers.