As Nathan pointed out, I did attend the career fair yesterday. On Tuesday, I attended a seminar at WashU career services where they said to research the companies attending and focus on a few you really want to talk to, then spend most of your time there. I researched on my favorite encyclopedia: the internet, and found 7 companies that had open entry-level positions in software development somewhere in the country. Armed with this knowledge, I was prepared.

Unfortunately most of the companies were not prepared. UPS, for example, has programmer openings in my former hometown of Roswell, Georgia. When I asked the rep about this, he stared at me quizzically and said "oh, we're only here recruiting for package handlers at the Earth City plant". Citadel, a financial corporation, also has entry-level programming positions, but they informed me that they "only hire business majors from WashU", and that they get their tech people from other schools. The reps therefore knew nothing about any of their technical openings.

By far the worst, though, was Accenture, a consulting company with many positions listed on their line job database as "Entry-Level Programmer I" all over the country. When I asked the recruiter about this, he stared at me and said "I don't know anything about our tech. positions, I only know about our consultant positions. You want to be a consultant, not a programmer." Then he spent 15-20 minutes telling me what a great job a consultant is. Which is all well and good, but I specifically told him I was interested in software development.

So my preparedness, rather than giving me a leg up on the competition, made me completely frustrated. I will, however, give props to the two companies that did have their shit together, so to speak: Cerner and General Mills. Cerner actually knew my name and remembered who I was, which is a good sign. General Mills has programmer openings and is starting a .NET initiative. So you get rewarded with a favorable writeup in the Festival, while the other companies, for their lack of preparation and competance, get big frowny faces. Boo.

It seems Lucas, frustrated by the Packers general suckiness, is allowing his girlfriend to make his picks for him. Perhaps this will help him catch up a little. And before I forget, if you're going to write things in your blog like "Not to be outdone by Chris"perhaps you should ensure that you are indeed not outdone by me (as well as Lucas) once again. Here are this week's selections, with shorter writeups since I've already written enough in this post:

AZ at STL: Arizona can't win 2 games in a row with their craptacular lineup of has beens and never will be's, which is lucky for arrogant Mike Martz. STL

SF at MIN: At home, against a shoddy opponent, with a few injuries, this one has all the makings of a trap game for the Vikings. Since I have a lead, I'll go out on a limb and make this my upset special. SF

TEN at PIT: The battle of the 90-year-old running backs. Tennessee is the most unpredictable team in the league, so I'll go with all those Steelers WRs in this one. PIT

NE at WAS: Oh my poor Patriots. Pretty soon they'll need to start some of their offensive players on defense. I think Antowain Smith might be a better defensive tackle than running back. WAS

JAX at HOU: This is a tough one. It's never a good idea to pick a rookie QB in his first start, but David Carr is banged up. JAX

PHI at BUF: The Eagles might climb back into it eventually, but not here. They don't have the defense to harass Bledsoe like the Dolphins did last week. BUF

CIN at CLE: I keep picking the Bengals to get their first win, and they keep losing. Once again, here goes: the Bengals finally get on the board this week. CIN

KC at BAL: Priest Holmes vs. Ray Lewis, Jamal Lewis vs. ...nobody. Let's see how the Chiefs do when tested. KC anyway

SD at OAK: The Chargers are starting to look like one of those "this team will win one game this season, which will it be?" teams. Again, I'm going to say not this one. OAK

DAL at NYJ: And speaking of bad teams, you have the New York Jets, Bill Parcells' old team. I still think they'll win this week though. I just have this feeling. NYJ

ATL at CAR: No Michael Vick means no problem defeating the Falcons. CAR

DET at DEN: No, Jake Plummer is not as good as he looked last week. DEN

IND at NO: The Colts are not a 4-0 team, and New Orleans has got to start winning one of these days. NO

GB at CHI: Well Lucas, at least you get to watch your crappy Packers play on MNF this week. And they should look great playing the Bears. GB

Posted by: Brian at September 28, 2003 4:01 PM