no points for guessing... we are facing recession (whatever the hell wall st and main st might be saying). This means job prospect, esp. for finance sector is bleak. This means people who were kinda thinking of finance will stick to their alternate sectors thereby increasing competition elsewhere ;( ... To give a hint I attended the NBMBA conference in DC last week. As one colleague commented it was a swarm of black suited MBAs. Since this was practically my first visit to a career fair (and a first real attempt at job hunting), I was overwhelmed. For at least one hour I wondered if I am ready for my target companies (which, btw, still remains undecided) and start reciting my stupid pitch all the while the employers gave silly grin. But after a while and tons of motivation from my classmates and career management alike, I approached some of the companies. It felt stupid to go there and basically tell what everyone else was also saying. But I somehow managed to do that. Unfortunately, after a while I realized that I had no more resumes left with me (I had brought only 7-8) and so thought of calling the day... but before that I thought of having some fun. I chatted with several companies who I hardly knew and students from other schools and know their experience. It turns out that at some of the hot companies even second years are applying for summer internship. This was enough for me to stick with my background in operations.

All in all, I understood what career fair is all about. I also learned to have more than 20-30 resumes during fair. But most importantly, my fear of delivering pitch has faded.

To sum up, I had few grudges:
1. For a career switcher, it was a challenge trying to explain how your past experience fits their needs, when in fact there are a bunch of people with suitable skills... yes, I know the crap that you have to differentiate etc but the point is it is extremely difficult to explain that in two minutes... For me it was more about knowing their requirement and making connection (which I hardly did).
2. Some employers were really uninformed. Some of them were not sure if they hired international students or not and half were plain dumb in explaining what they were there for.
3. It feels embarrassing when they are not interested in you and they take your resume and toss it to trash once you are gone. For a stupid guy like me who had only few resumes in hand, it hurts!

BTW, did I tell you that you had several goodies to collect once you are finished with your career quest? My personal favorite - $10 debit card from Citi.