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Remember the days of yore when the big annual college job fair came around?  Hundreds of anxious students gather, holding a stack of resumes under left arm while keeping their right hand dry for greeting potential employers.  The sight is humorous to behold, at least from an outsider's perspective, but from a student's point of view it's nerve wrecking! 

Recently, Liferay Dalian attended it's first job fair at Dalian University of Technology, one of the top ranking school's in China.  Mark, Steven, and  I manned our table along with a good friend from DUT.  I believe we were the only english speaking foreign company that was there so we definitly stood out. 

Many of the english speaking students were pretty astonishing, although a few of them were shaking and sweating from the forehead.  The ones that impressed me most were the students that took the initiative in introducing themselves and explaining the highlights of their resume.  I had to wonder, do Chinese employers value the same type of positive attitude and confident demeanor as American employers do?  How does one grab the attention of an employer that has seen scores of students before them?  I sure remember some of the students who's first line to me was, "I am sorry, my english is poor..."  I felt that I had the responsibility to help them with a better interview technique, so I told them they should just speak and not admit their english is poor.

All in all, my impression of students in Dalian are similar to my sentiments to students in the states.  Here are a group of individuals who still have that spark of idealism that many have lost, most of whom will go through phases of discouragement from the same world they so very want to change.  I mean, here are our leaders for tomorrow!  By the end of the day I felt like helping everyone finding a job even outside of Liferay. 

We'll see what comes out of the standouts with Mike Han's interview!  In the meantime, enjoy the pics!

Mark, DUT Friend, Me with display poster

The bright students of DUT / Mark and Steven working hard!