~~~
Day’s Verse:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed
2 Cor. 4:7-9
~~~

I have spent the last two days at the WPI Spring Job Fair. Amazingly, they recruited about three companies that need technical communicators, so I actually had people who wanted to talk to me! Usually I quake in my shoes at the idea of job fair circulating, and I have some very painful memories of previous job fairs. But this time I smiled and confidently introduced myself. This is my future on the line, not just some summer job here. Thus I distributed my resume to (in no particular order):

• Underwriters Laboratories Inc (bag, notebook, pen)
• Parker Chomerics (rubber-band plane)
• MIT Lincon Laboratory (brochure)+
• Charles River Laboratories (business card)*
• Raytheon (T-shirt, brochure)+
• Computer Associates (paper)*+
• Yantra (pen, magnetic ball-and-stick set, interview)*+
• Workscape (nothing)*
• Accutech (brochure)
• Wyeth (brochure)
• American Power Conversion (stress ball)
• Analog Devices (book lamp)
• RSA Security (combination lock)+
• Alstom Power (brochure)

The parenthetical notes tell what gift they passed out. I think there must be one company that solely makes do-dads to pass out at job fairs and similar events. Every table had the same red-striped black boxes with the same cheap-but-novel gizmos inside.

+ These companies specifically listed technical communications as a major they wanted to hire, or they said they wanted Technical/Medical Writers.

* These companies seemed particularly interested in me. I have an interview tomorrow with Yantra (a company whose name Ian cannot resist chanting: YAN-tra, YAN-tra), and Charles River Laboratories and Computer Associates (CA) sounded keenly interested as well. I expect to hear from them, and probably Workscape, in the near future. My job is to re-submit my resume on their websites and go from there. Today left me feeling somewhat hopeful about the job situation, as CA and Yantra–hehe–especially seemed very interested in me; and doing a preliminary interview, however preliminary, is better than I hoped for. Now, if only I had some nice clothes left to wear…

Another amusing part of the job fair is seeing my friends all scrubbed and polished. They don suits, shower, brush their hair, stand straight and tall, usually succeeding at looking rather mature and capable.