Employment.nil? Job Fair was a success!

posted by pete on June 13th, 2009

I’m happy to report that our weird little community Ruby expo was a big hit. We had 23 posters made, and about 150 visitors over 7 hours by my rough estimation. The Ontario Minister of Small Business, Harinder Takhar came and met several of the Rubyists before presenting us with a nice framed certificate of awesomeness. That was pretty cool!

Most importantly, many contacts were exchanged, interviews were set up, and I’m reasonably sure I watched someone get hired in front of me. That’s a good feeling, and while I’m not going to say that planning this event in a month was easy (everyone thank logistics hero Meghann Millard!) this really is an idea with wings, and you should do it in your own community. I say community in reference both to the city you live in, as well as the language and framework that you use.

If I was going to do anything differently, I would make the event much shorter. Employment.nil? was 11am-6pm, but I think 1pm-5pm would be “just right”. Also, I would sleep more that 50 minutes in the 60 hours leading up to the event.

Banning computers was probably the best way to force creativity that I’ve ever witnessed. People made flip-books, laser-etched plexiglass business cards, ran a trivia quiz game, and generally did things that would never have happened if it was business as usual.

Thanks to Meghann, all of the presenters, the Gladstone Hotel, the folks who recorded video, Kandice Ardiel and Harinder Takhar, and everyone who helped get the word out.

Joey DeVilla did an amazing writeup on his blog, if you want the full scoop! And now, videos! If you have more, add them to the Vimeo Ruby Job Fair channel.

Employment.nil? The Minister of Small Business Visits from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

Employment.nil? Introduction from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

I think that we can agree, that one takes the cake in the “flattering previews” category.

Employment.nil? Andrew Burke from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

Employment.nil? Enrico Bianco from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

Employment.nil? Bart G from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

Employment.nil? Joshua on PostRank from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

Employment.nil? Krispy and Joey from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

Those were all recorded by Anita Kuno! Here’s Eric Taylor’s contribution:

Rocket Ship! from Pete Forde on Vimeo.

Ilia uploaded a 10 minute summary (I have a cameo at the 8:05 mark):

And finally, here’s Joey’s photo set on Flickr. I have some rad black and white medium format shots, but they haven’t been scanned yet. Sorry!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.