Idealist Job Fair

I haven't been to a job fair in almost thirty years, since I was an undergrad at Northeastern. Not much has changed. Picture an empty hall packed with rows and rows of tables, each table staffed with one or two earnest looking people and in a few cases a flag, some take-aways and a standing display of some sort.

What really surprised me was the sheer amount of people. When the doors opened, we were backlogged for about ten minutes to even get in due to the number of people. This wasn't just kids, but I noticed a lot of grey-heads in suits with leather satchels in hand.

This was a career fair for jobs in the non-profit sector. But the only word that mattered to a lot of us was jobs.

Meg from Idealist.org gave a great presentation on looking for jobs in this sector for both new workers and mid-career sector switchers. She pointed out the percentage of growth for jobs in non-profit space and shared some strategies as well as outlining some of the realities. (She also recommended their downloadable career guides.)

I hadn't really been scared before. I guess I've been optimistically sure that something will work out. I've got my plan, the skills I need to acquire and the sector that I need to break into, so I haven't been really dealing with this at the ground level. There's a palpable whiff of desperation and it's hard not to be affected by that. Especially when you see job after job for entry- or mid-level positions only in my own search.



Posted with LifeCast