Thinking Outside of the Box

Over the last few days, I’ve been reflecting on some of the other ways I’ve tried to find a job here in the ‘burgh. Here's one; I'll share some others in a subsequent post.

I was pretty proud of this particular job hunting idea: the Financial Education Consortium of Southwestern Pennsylvania was holding a Financial Education Fair at the Convention Center downtown. It was free, so why not attend, do a little networking, make some connections?

I was excited, because my last job had been at one of Pittsburgh’s financial institutions, so I had the experience I needed.

True, it wasn’t a ‘traditional’ job fair, but frankly I hadn’t had any luck with those -- and besides, job hunters need to think outside of the box, right?

So, with a handful of personal business cards tucked into my wallet and small stack of resumes in my attaché, I headed for the Financial Education Fair. Stopping at each table, I schmoozed and networked and exchanged business cards with the representatives of the banks, nonprofit organizations and other entities that were in attendance.

At the end of the day, I left, cheered at the prospect of getting a new job.

I followed up with an email to each person from whom I had received a business card, briefly reiterating some of the issues we had discussed at the fair, and attached the link to my resume.

I never heard back from a single person.