Today was job fair day
I saw an announcement for a virtual job fair via Washington Employment Security Department (the folks who handle our unemployment claims among other things). It was run with an online platform called Job Fair Pro. I signed up and attended today.
It was what you might expect from a very broadly based job fair advertised to the unemployed: few senior or tech-industry roles. That’s fine. Hopefully someone else found what they needed today. I didn’t.
What made it stand out for me was the user experience (UX). If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’m not a fan of bad UX. I even turned off the automated in-content ads on this site because they were too poorly delineated from the content by Google AdSense. I’ll make a few cents less, but this blog isn’t a revenue generator. It’s a relationship generator (between the author the reader).
The job fair web interface had multiple “booths,” one for the main lobby and one each for the employers attending. The problem was that once you visited a booth, you got an alert (audible chime and flashing browser tab) EVERY time anyone visited that booth for the first time. There did not seem to be a menu option tied to configuring these alerts to be silent. As you can guess, it got annoying.
It wasn’t just the repetitive noise. The alerts were predominantly not someone contacting me (whether employer or fellow seeker). They were noise about events of low relative importance obscuring the signal of contacts.
Pro-tip, right-click the browser tab in Chrome and select “Mute Site” to turn off the chimes without having to adjust your system volume.
I wanted to provide feedback on that feature so I went to the contact link in their virtual platform.
If you can’t read the text in the image, it’s a modal window with instructions for the site owner on how to change the contents of the window.
Searching for Job Fair Pro on LinkedIn turned up no company results and only one post by another unemployment office from another state was relevant in the search results for posts using the term. Their homepage has a contact email and links to their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, but none for LinkedIn. That isn’t necessarily unprofessional, but it doesn’t pass the sniff test either. Why wouldn’t they have a product or company page on LinkedIn?
Definitely would not recommend if you’re a tech professional, especially a senior-level developer or manager. You’ll not only be unlikely to find anything of interest, you’ll find annoyances you know are completely fixable.
I was also going to go to HackerX as well, which is an invite-only event in person in downtown Seattle tonight. Sadly, childcare issues came up. I might have been able to overcome them, but it would be a big effort. Even without overcoming childcare issues, going would have required a 55 mile round-trip in sub-freezing temperatures to a tech recruiting event that had a low likelihood of recruiters trying to fill Developer Relations roles, even incidentally.
All in all, I decided the added hurdles of the childcare issue made it too much effort for the expected ROI. Still, people in my network have spoken well of HackerX events and I hope they might have something closer to my physical location and/or during warmer weather in the future. I’d like to check it out.
Elsewhere on the job front…
Waiting on word about the round of interviews last week. Am I moving on to another round? Getting an offer? TBD. They are evaluating two candidates and I might not win. I don’t see it as losing per se if I don’t get the offer, because interviewing in this professional niche is also a odd way of networking. I’m very likely to run into them at a conference, in a forum, or even turn to them for advice on using their product. We may not be “buds,” after an interview, but now we know each other.
I had good chats with headhunters for two startups yesterday. One was cool and one was really cool. Hoping both move forward.
My first and best test for whether to move on is whether I could see myself using the product in the future without having to be paid to or ordered to by an employer. Do I personally go “ooh, this is neat” when I start exploring it? Longer-range, I look at what the associated developer community is like and whether I could fit in and be useful in it. I’ve been a good salesman and a shitty salesman when I was younger. I realized the difference lay in whether I was able to emotionally invest and believe in my product.
That’s why I’m turning down recruiters for Web3 companies. I’m just not feeling it. If I sit down for a full loop with your company, it means I’m feeling the product. I’m just hoping to get something going before my financial situation makes me start rationalizing affinity with potential employers. I’m looking for a good product fit, mission fit, and team fit.
And the search continues…