Shredding the Career Fair

Ah, Career Fair. A day of opportunity, of wonder, of wardrobe malfunctions. A day of opportunities lost, of frantically modifying your resume at one in the morning, of really long lines for companies you've never heard of. Once upon a time, companies had to go through all the effort of taking your resume, pretending to read it — maybe even interviewing you — before ultimately shredding your resume and forgetting all about you. But no longer! 

It seems that every time companies visit RIT, the campus works harder to make them feel welcome. "It's the most organized career fair we come to," said National Security Agency (NSA) recruiter Jane [REDACTED]. "That takes a lot of phone calls late at night. I should know," she said as she winked.

The next step in RIT's continuing Career-Fair-based innovation comes in the form of complementary shredders for every company. Now the companies can shred your resume right before your very eyes, saving time and energy for all participants. Distorter asked Senior Vice President of Career Services Molli Cannoli for comment.

"Oh, yes. By providing shredders to companies, we were able to save them thousands of dollars in electricity, not to mention the cost of transporting those huge stacks of resumes to their own destruction facilities," she said. "It really makes a lot of sense."

The shredders, Cannoli explained, come in two models, at the individual company's discretion. There are the Cummins-Allison 569's, which can handle over 15 reams of paper and are approved by the NSA, according to [REDACTED], and the energy-efficient Intimus EcoLogic. "We take our shredders very seriously," Cannoli explained.

And that's not all Career Services has provided. There over 30 rooms in the Field House that have been set up as temporary interview/shredder rooms. Many companies, Cannoli stated, prefer to shred in privacy. With these dual-purpose rooms, each company will not only be able to conduct interviews but also transmute the interviewee's painstakingly-constructed resume into confetti in equal privacy, before the interviewee even leaves the room.

We reached out to a Google recruiter for comment, but they simply spun in circles, flailing their arms and cackling maniacally. But we did catch a sobbing student on the way out.

"I just worked so hard on that resume," complained third year Computer Science student Sneerhardt Graft. "I spent three hours picking out fonts. FONTS!" Graft went on to describe the painstaking way the Google recruiter had fed page after page of Graft's resume — 20 pages in all — into the shredder. "All that time deciding between Comic Sans and Papyrus for nothing!" he lamented. "Who on earth thought this was a good idea?"

"Oh, come off it!" exclaimed a nearby Illustration student, fourth year Joanne Jones. She explained that most of CIAS was talking about the new policy. "For years, people have joked about our dismal Career Fair hiring rates." Across the room, a shredder sounded to a mechanical engineer's agonized shrieks. "Hahahahaha!" Joanne commented. "HAHAHAHAHA!"

Students aren't the only ones excited about the innovation. We sat down with Ingrid Bluejay, RIT's chief sustainability kibitzer.

We asked Bluejay about how the shredder policy would impact RIT's "Carbon Neutral by 2030" policy. Surely the sheer power-draw from 250 companies running shredders at once would set back the campus's carbon footprint.

"It's really just wonderful," the official RIT eco-guru commented from within in her bark office-hut. "Not only are some of the shredders eco-friendly, but you have to think about the alternatives." She asked us to remember earlier eras, when companies would have to schlep hundreds or thousands of resumes back to their own offices — in many instances across the country from our own campus. "The carbon footprint from all that trucking and flying is practically incalculable."

"Think about it like eating locally," she said.

But Distorter is a serious publication, and not so easily balked. When you consider that some of these big companies like Amazon or Microsoft might be shredding four or five student resumes at a time, it really adds up. Concerned for the well-being of our planet, Distorter met up with President Wrestler to further discuss the ecological ramifications of the decision.

"It's true," Wrestler said in his smooth, smooth baritone, "the environment is our top concern. But I think you might be missing out on the bigger picture here. Those shredded resumes don't just disappear." Wrestler went on to explain that the estimated 17 tons of resume paper (approximately two pounds per student) will be used as fertilizer along the Quarter Mile.

"The walk smells like shit," Wrestler said. "You know it, I know it, everyone knows it." After recent failed attempts to use a semen-based fertilizer, the administration is now turning to strips of standard 24-pound resume paper.

This new fertilizer will be used not just on the quarter mile, but all over campus. "In the community gardens, that CV you worked so hard on for the biochem startup. On the hills of Pi Quad, thousands of bits of Software Engineering resumes." He smiled that winning Wrestler smile. "Come spring," the president intoned, "the campus will smell like cherry blossoms and unemployment."