Does anyone know the details for this year's event February 8th in Palm Springs? In years past there was a face to face opportunity with UAL recruiters. I heard that is not the case anymore, however they will be collecting resumes?

Sounds like it’s going to be an industry relevant presentation with Q&A, then you’ll drop off a resume in a stack. No face to face.

How do these job fair deals work? There are general job fairs as well as ones supporting gay people, women, minorities, etc. Are extra points given to people who attend these events, or are they just a seminar where people can attend and possibly gain information on how to improve your chances of getting hired?

It has nothing to do with the demographic. These job fairs are run by nonprofits geared towards aviation and use the money jobseekers pay to fund aviation scholarships, versus previous generations who had to pay for profit companies who may or may not have been run by less than reputable folks.

Now, airlines may not be inclined to hire people who WON'T go to a minority themed event because they may have a hard time fitting in with their colleagues when hired. IE: I don't feel comfortable at a female-centric conference... Well guess what, the UAL chief pilot is a woman.

Many airlines attend events like 'Sun and Fun' or the Reno Air Races etc, as well. Alaska has an airshow they sponsor. However, WAI, NGPA and OBAP have the largest and best run aviation networking events in the country and it makes sense to have a presence. It is also a benefit to job seekers to have pretty much every airline in the country in one place versus attending a bespoke event for every airline one at a time, if you don't want to spend 10 weekends a year pounding the pavement.

Why can’t these job fairs support everyone? Why must we put everyone in groups?

If you can’t understand why then you are already lost. The point of this thread is for people to understand what kind of presence United and other Airlines may have at these types of events. Sounds like it’s iffy, but I do know that there are slots for these events on the application and that likely translates to some additional points for scoring in their system is my guess.

I’d just like to see all of these groupings go away. An airplane is just a machine and doesn’t know who is in the seat, and most of us don’t care either. People are individuals. I do think that when a school, employer, etc. give extra consideration to an applicant due to some grouping such as gender, race... over another it is just as discriminatory as if they had denied admission for the same reasons. I guess I’m just turning into the crusty old guy.

I think you are sharing a lot of your opinion about these that “may” be factual, but is clearly biased.

When you say “airlines may not be inclined to hire......your are postulating that airline hiring is making assumptions about the character of yet unknown employee who didn’t attend a function for unknow reasons, such as schedule conflict, travel difficulties, budget, and attributing their non attendance as some sort of bias on the employees part. I think that is your fantasy and clearly prejudiced. I believe our recruiters and hiring board have a more mature and well advised grip on what makes a good employee.

Your anti-woman straw man is lame.

If understanding means going along w this hive mentality that putting people in groups v.s. hiring based on education and skills then yup I’m just not getting it. Utter b.s.