The 2007 Student Affairs Job Hunt

In Medias Res # 16- Ugh

The above is a sentiment I subscribe to wholeheartedly. I am already not a fan of the month of April for a variety of reasons: the time crunch it means on campuses, the programming overload (we have to spend our budget), the student burnout, oncoming slate of assignments. The only saving grace of April is the weather. Usually, at least, the weather is a saving grace. Not today.
NASPA/ACPA? That’s probably what you want me to write about. I will write expansively either tomorrow or this weekend. For now, just some highlights.
The socials were better than OPE. Marriot and Gaylord have better caterers than the U-Wisconsin system. Who knew?
I heart schools that have socials in rooms named after their town. For example, UCLA in the Los Angeles room. Thank you for simplifying my life.
The President’s suite was pimp.
NASPA/ACPA runs a much better placement solely based on the fact that I did not have to run up and down stairs or between towers.
That conference was not accessible.
They found the one place in Orlando where there were no restaurants in walking distance.
Al Gore is funnier than Jay Leno. Poor Jay Leno.
The best thing that can happen to you is for the hotel to overbook and then bump you up to a suite. This did not happen to me.
Do not go out by the pool in your bathing suit if you are interviewing.
The Joint Conference was exhausting, I still have not fully recovered. That said I have a couple of strong leads on positions and I even got another on campus. So that’s exciting. Some of my colleagues had more firm offers when they departed, but I went in with some really strong prospects. The nice part of having stuff already scheduled was the confidence boost it gave me. I turned down a lot of second round interviews (and some offers for first rounds) because they really do not match my needs.
I just felt better going into these interviews for some reason. Perhaps because it was a larger conference the interviewers were more than willing to see my student service experience as translatable to residence life. Or maybe I just cared less if people were seeing the connection. At OPE I felt a lot of resistance from interviewers and at the Joint Conference, there were quite a few more schools how embraced me. More importantly there were some schools that I got really excited about.
I will admit, I have a new crush. It’s a large private, and just about everyone of the staff members I met was amazing, intelligent, and funny. You would think everyone I interviewed with would be personable, but that’s just not the case. But this school? We’re gonna get married. Hopefully. So obviously I didn’t get a job before NASPA/ACPA. That’s ok though. Because the jobs that I found there are really exciting. Next time: more about the joint conference, why interviewing there might have made me less excited for my scheduled on campuses, and why May is worse than April (preview: I’m unemployed).

posted by StudentAffairs.com @ 10:24 AM