A leap into the slightly known

I've just been to a careers fair. It was a very odd experience. I've been to careers fairs before, usually as an undergrad and mostly in search of free pens and sweets. This one was different, partly as it was a targets tech start up careers fair and partly because I'm actually looking for a job.

I learnt a fair bit. Some positive, some negative. There appears to be a lot of "We're going to be the Uber of..." or "We're the AirBnB of...", without much product or vision to back this up - a lot of whom were acting very much like the stalls I remember from the undergrad careers fairs (lots of branded freebies, not much real interest in talking to people), and lots of people wanting specific framework knowledge or key technology, the real Uber/Citymapper/AirBnB (all with queues so long I didn't bother even thinking about going to talk to them, but I know they exist, if I want to go and work for them I can just go and look for vacancies on their websites) but dotted amongst them were some much more interesting prospects. There were people who didn't mention hard skills at all really - they were just looking for clever people.

I had some fascinating conversations with really clever people from all sorts of fields - some of whom I'd quite like to work with if the opportunity arrises. It's also given me some confidence that not everyone is just looking for someone with the exact experience they need, and that thinking and learning are valued.

(also there was free coffee and fruit juice).