Steady Flow at SPIEWorks Career Fair

The SPIEWorks Career Fair wasn’t exactly busy at 2 p.m. on its second day, but no one at the SPIEWorks or vendors’ booths seemed to mind.

“It was steady yesterday [Tuesday],” said Simon Meth of General Atomics of San Diego. “It’s been slower today.”

Meth said he had collected a large number of résumés from attendees and that he was planning to contact about 10 people for follow-up interviews.

“We’ve gotten a lot of résumés, more so than in the past,” said SPIEWorks sales representative Dave Baggenstos. He said that, by Wednesday afternoon, 201 résumés and 154 jobs were posted on the Photonics West 2009 section of www.spieworks.com.

“The companies seem happy,” he said. “But it takes time: If they get résumés, then they have to go back and screen them and then call [the applicants] for interviews.”

But making that first connection can be the toughest part, and career fairs are a way for job seekers to add a face to the name on their résumé; they’re also a way for employers to prescreen candidates. And this year’s career fair appears to have been a success, according to Baggenstos.

“Everybody seems happy,” he said.

Laura S. Marshall
laura.marshall@laurin.com