All about the swag

So. Grace Hopper. Man—what to say? The 365 sponsoring organizations—companies, universities and government agencies—were clearly there to recruit. Heavy emphasis was on internships and early career. Many booths in the career fair were as elaborate and enticing as those I’ve seen at high-end tech conferences. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Disney; but also banks and other fintech outfits (think Mastercard, CapOne, American Express and brokerages), insurance companies (Allstate, Northwestern Mutual), retailers (Walmart to Nordstrom), social media, telecoms, pharma, startups—anything that depends on electronics or software to function.

They were out in force to lure software and hardware engineers, data scientists, UX designers and ancillary disciplines into joining. I wrote yesterday about some of the social/networking events on offer, today, let’s return to the career fair floor.

Here’s something that was missing from the typical conference/trade show lineup: booth babes. Everyone staffing the booths was a company employee, either recruiter or actual worker bee, there to give you the scoop about why you’d want to work there. No need for scantily-clad chicks in stilettos and full war-paint to get anyone’s attention. Having the Twitter or Apple logo over your head was enough to cause long lines to form.

Besides, I’m not sure that the inverse equivalent, booth hunks, are either easily conjured up or would serve the function for young women looking for juicy internships or FTE. The instant they started talking coding or data science, unless the hunks could keep up, the prospects would move on.

No—the booths were staffed with company employees, both recruiters and actual technologists, so that prospects could talk with people who understand the company and the work. (In addition to their presence in the career fair, most organizations also had interview booths resembling nomadic tents in movies, curtained off for privacy, where full-on job interviews were held and actual offers made for jobs and internships.) In a tech conference, this would have been the place where the companies would go to make deals with customers.

Some companies made this clear on the fair floor:

ADP, a company whose product I fight with on a regular basis was there. I wanted to stand by their booth with a bell and lantern to warn off the unsuspecting. “These people wouldn’t know good software if it rose up and bit them in the butt. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!”

ADP couldn't innovate its way out of a paper bag. End of.

Swag was somewhat different from what you get at tech fairs: tee-shirts, yes, but from a flimsier fabric than the kind of thing that you get at shows expecting a preponderance of males. The always-useful tote bags and water bottles. Some tech gear (chargers, charging cables, cable organizers), but a lot more stuff aimed at women; Chapstick, makeup bags—well, have a look.

Tote bags, including an interesting one from SquareSpace:

At the iOS dinner, they handed out this tote bag with the socks and hat already loaded, and then directed you to a table full of tee-shirts, stickers and other things, inviting you to choose. It was kind of like the Oscars, although no Harry Winston or Ferragamo.

I only got one water bottle, from GoDaddy, although at one event I spoke with a woman who had collected about six or eight, and was going back for more.

There were notebooks:

And way more pens than this sampling:

Makeup bags:

The tech kit I mentioned:

As an aside: those earbuds from Acxiom were the most costly in the history of trade shows. I had to listen to Tevvy (a SDE, I think) drone on ever so s-l-o-w-l-y about the company, in which I have no interest whatsoever. I almost handed back the earbuds as a way of getting out of there.

Roche gave out the selfie stick. I have never taken a selfie, nor do I ever expect to take one, but having an extension might come in handy for other shots. If I ever want to carry one with me. Which is unlikely, but still; now I have one.

There was also miscellaneous filler—ADP wasn’t the only organization to hand out a fidget spinner, but one was enough for me. The travel kit was from Walmart. You were meant to download their app and then show up to collect it. I downloaded, collected my “perk” and then deleted.

And some more, including a very nice little desk accessories set from Thumbtack—mini stapler, staple puller, scissors, flags, etc.

This bag from Tesla was interesting. I received an email congratulating me on being identified as a Tesla VIP because I was among the first to upload my résumé into their database (I didn’t, as it happens; I did upload it to the GHC portal, because that's the only way I was going to get invited to any parties, duh). I was directed to go to the west entrance of the Conference Center, where they had a Model 10 on display, to collect my reward.

Well, I walked back and forth, unable to locate the west entrance, before I checked emails and found that “due to rain”, they’d abandoned that idea and told me to go to their interview booth. My VIP “reward” was this "limited edition" bag:

With these objects inside:

A lanyard, a Hot Wheels Tesla Model X, a pen, and a something I haven’t a clue. Looks like you might be able to peel off the backing and stick it to a surface. But what you’re meant to put in it I have no earthly notion. I felt like Ralphie when he got his secret encoder ring from Ovaltine.

Oh—and, of course, tee-shirts:

I didn’t think I’d got that many—certainly not as many as were on offer. But still, when I unpacked at home, I had nine.

All-in-all, pretty impressive, and very interesting to observe how the recruiting organizations went about luring prospects in, between the parties and the swag.