Maquinna's Poop du Jour

The Dog and Pony Show

One of the least enjoyable things - OK, probably THE least enjoyable thing, apart from my dismal salary - about my job is recruiting at MBA forums. These are events where all the poor stiffs like myself from all the other schools and I are crowded into a room, where we spread our polyester banners and colourful literature (lots of pictures and glossy paper) over tables and try to convince people to fork over $40K (or $50K, or $60K, or more, you get the picture) for an MBA. Yes, you too can be a jet-setting star consultant for Goldman Sachs! You can get the corner office overlooking the river! You can be the CEO of Enron! The world is your freaking oyster, once you have our MBA on your resume.

What it comes down to is this: it's very difficult to sell something that you don't believe in. I should know - I have an MBA, but worse, I've worked in the business education industry for over ten years now (I shudder, even writing that). I know how those average starting salary figures are derived (can you say 'massage the data until it fits'?). I know how they create rankings in national publications (your dean and my dean are going to play golf this weekend and agree to bump each other up while dissing all these other schools). I know why some people, from some schools, get those coveted brass ring jobs while most MBAs end up barely making more than they did before they started, slaving away as the junior-junior assistant to the janitor in some backwater stinkhole of a company about to go under, wondering how the hell they're going to pay off their student loans.

Tonight I have to do another such event. This means I'll be pulling my case of literature through some nameless parking garage at some faceless, concrete institution of higher learning, spreading my wares over the table, and attempting to seduce everyone who walks by to stop and talk with me, like some whore in a red-light district. I might as well climb on top of the table myself and put my legs up in the stirrups.

The prospects always ask these great questions, like, "What job will I get when I graduate?" I dunno. Who are you willing to blow? Or, "What are my chances of getting in?" For that school over there, pretty much next to nil unless you have a GMAT score in the high 600s or your Daddy sends a big fat cheque to their latest capital campaign. Our school, on the other hand, will take anyone with their own hair and teeth, as long as you pay the tuition.

My favourites are the crackpots that show up at every one of these events, and go around collecting logo pens from all the different schools like they're trophies. They hang around with ratty shopping bags full of stuff they've pulled out of dumpsters, sliding up alongside you to stammer and nod as you talk with real prospects, which they quickly scare off, and then stay at your side for another 20 minutes talking about how the government screwed them back in '81 and one of these days someone's going to pay for it.

Probably me, I figure.

All of the school reps keep their perma-grins on their face and feign exuberance in front of anyone who remotely fits their target demographic. They teeter in their heels, if they're rookies, dying to rub their feet or take their shoes right off (a horrific faux pas). The seasoned ones know you wear flat shoes to these things - three hours on your feet harkens back to summers slaving away at retail.

Some schools always have a lineup in front of their tables - the ones which have the money to spin their PR machines faster and better than anyone else, and have so many media contacts that they keep their names permanently in the spotlight. Repetition, repetition - that's how branding works. The rest of us, who work for various permutations of 'Last Chance University' pick up those who get tired of waiting in front of Harvard, or are quickly blown off by their perfectly coiffed admissions rep.

It's the shittiest part of my job, and the one I try to avoid like the plague. Statistics show more and more that fewer prospects are attending these fairs, because they do their research more directly through the internet. But we're all scared to be the ones NOT there, just in case. We need the bodies more badly than the military needs fresh meat right now.

posted by Maquinna @ 1:02 p.m.