Cross your fingers!

I am off to my job conference - please keep your fingers crossed and send me all the good vibes you can. Quite a few of you are a bit confused by how this job search process works. In case you have not figured out yet, this student affairs field is different from all other field. Hopefully this will make it a little easier to understand.

Every year there are about a dozen or so job conferences for people in Student Affairs. Three years ago I went to a conference called OPE (Osh Kosh Placement Exchange that was held in Wisconsin). That conference is largely geared towards entry level professional (those without experience). This year I am going to ACPA which is a convention for people in Student Affairs - usually those with advance degrees and/or experience. During the convention, they also have an event called Placement where I hope to find a job.

I, along with 700 other job seekers, registered to attend Placement in November. I was able to post a resume and create a profile that described who I was and what I was looking for in my next employer. Because I was a registered candidate, I was able to search through the open positions that the 600 or so employers list on the website. Each employer has on average 1.5 positions available. I sent my resume packet to schools that I was interested in and was able to preschedule interviews with schools that were interested in me.

As of today, I have 11 prescheduled interviews. Not all schools preschedule so I expect to add a few when I get to the conference which is in Indianapolis (just about three hours away). Each interview will last about half an hour. Some schools will ask me to schedule a second half hour interview with someone else from their school. After the conference, the schools will take all the files from all the candidates at this conference and any other conference they attended and decided who they think will "fit" best with their institution. Those people will be invited to an on-campus interview which lasts about a day and a half.

Hope this clarified some of the confusion. Happy St Patrick's Day!