I’ve never smiled so much in my life.

The halls of the journalism school were filled Saturday with the happiest-looking group I’ve ever seen. Well, not the halls, exactly, but the rooms at either end. Columbia was holding its 2001 Job Opportunity Conference, and everybody in the two interviewing chambers was smiling like they actually had something to be glad about. The halls, now that I think about it, contained an absolutely miserable-looking batch of people.

Our facial expressions changed instantly, though, upon entering the interview rooms, as we all tried to project charm, intelligence and general good will: I’m a nice person! You like me! You want to hire me! Smile! Smile! Once off-stage, with the words “hiring freeze” ringing in our ears, our expressions turned somewhat glummer.

Any job interview invites the candidate to throw up a false front, but the conference, due to the way it was set up, raised that idea to a new level. Like one of those dating parlor things, where candidates get a few minutes to try to impress the other person before moving on to the next potential, the students bounced from interview to interview, hoping to convince each recruiter that their publication was the single place they’d always dreamed of working. And it went both way, of course: One recruiter had six people convinced that a job offer would be in the mail sometime this week. I’m not even sure if the guy was hiring.

What an odd ritual.

Anyway, it was fun to make contact with a range of media folk. And anybody from the fair who has stopped by my site (the URL’s on everything I hand out), thanks for coming. It couldn’t have been any easier for you to sit in a room all day, disappointing those you couldn’t hire while hoping to find that one perfect candidate. We appreciate your time and interest.

And if you stopped by the site ‘cause you want to hire me, I’m just an email away.