I attended as a candidate.

I think the deposit is a great idea. If you have a better handle on how many candidates will be there, space can be allocated much more efficiently. I was surprised to see how little space I was supposed to get, and even more surprised when I was the only candidate (out of 6) at my table.

A deposit also helps you accept more candidates, which decreases the load on those of us that show up. I saw two companies that I really wanted to speak with (Mozilla and Yammer) seemingly lose interest because my line was too long. By the time I had a spare moment, they were gone. I might apply through normal channels, but I might not.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

-Make the name tags for recruiters and candidates different colors, if you can do so without completely losing legibility.

-Tell the candidates about the technical/non-technical dots (I may have missed the memo; if so, no worries). Either way, this was a great idea.

-Tell Garrett to get some sleep!

Personally, I had a blast. I came from Long Island, NY for the event, and it was more than worth it. I got swamped with interest and I'm literally sitting here juggling interview requests as I type this. I originally planned to leave Sunday morning (silly me), but my stay has been extended until late this week.

For future candidates:

-If the recruiter gives you something that doesn't have their name on it (like a printed job posting), get their contact information and write it down. You will never remember it later, and you want to be able to refer to that individual in your future correspondence.

-Preparation is pretty crucial. My experience was much less stressful because I worked on my stuff (poster, projects and their elevator pitches) for tens of hours. To that end...

-Do not stay up late the previous night hacking on your project. I know of one candidate who didn't attend because she stayed up all night working on a demo, and was then too tired to show up. The fair itself is actually draining; you stand up for hours on end and talk constantly. You don't want to start the day tired. I got an absurd amount of sleep (10+ hours) and was still beat by dinner.

-Test your demos beforehand on the laptop/server(s) that you plan to use.

-Print lots of resumés before you get to the fair. I printed 32 (power of 2, hee hee) and had to tell about 10 people that I ran out. Printer availability at the Dojo is spotty. Also, put your GitHub URL on your resumé. Not sure why I forgot to do this. My (printed) resumé is in Markdown, and this earned me brownie points. Also print it on heavier (but not too heavy) paper, too. 24lb. maybe? I'll stop rambling about resumés now, they're boring.

-Make a cool poster. I had a neat poster, and it ended up being a conversation starter. The posters exist so recruiters can size you up while you're talking to someone else. Why not make a good first impression?

-Brush up on your knowledge before the fair itself, as you may have a technical interview (or two, or ten) that day.

-If you're coming from out of town, find Katy on Airbnb. She is awesome.

For future recruiters:

-Do not walk up to candidates and ask them to describe themselves without first introducing yourself and your organization. I did a lot of unnecessary talking...

This turned out to be a lot longer than I expected, so I'll probably turn this into a blog post once the dust settles.

Bottom line, you guys did a hell of a job! I can't thank you enough. Consider me a permanent future volunteer.