Career fair
I attended my first career fair, in the land of opportunities.
So the first question anyone pops up is, how was it ??
ermmm...actually, I'm new here..don't actually know how these 'fairs' are supposed to be..so whatever answer i give, people are bent on telling me that how only consultants come to universities, how only good universities get all the good companies, if at all, and blah, blah, blah.. so it leaves a novice like me clueless !!!! (mercy !!!!)
Anyways, still for those who want to know, i think it was a 'fair' job fair, cos i applied to 8 firms for internships (1 out of these was for a PhD don't-gimme-those-sneers-please program!!). And the most amazing thing was i had the choice of applying to firms!! There was no screening process whatsoever.
The structure of the whole extravaganza was like this. All the companies had set up their booths. The institute had a registration process, so as to avoid intruders from other univs. Here we were given a guide sort of booklet, a map of the stalls and some goodies. The registration people also provided ties (the ones if tightened around 'the neck' can cause a lil bit of problem :D) and other stuff, to complete the formal look. I thought that was pretty cool and thoughtful of them. If you did not have time to zero down on your companies of interest, then using that guide one could screen them and save a lot of time and energy. So once you have shortlisted the firms, on the basis of eligibility criteria, like resident status, educational background, education level, time period (full time/part time/inters/co ops) etc., you are ready to roll !!
Next steps were, approaching the booth with cool head and few questions ready. Normally they had enough representives who would receive your queries individually. So people like me could shoot any kind of stupid things from 'oh, can i pick that lip balm?' to 'so you are into power systems, eh?'.
Alrite, jokes apart, it is a really good opportunity to think about your choices and accordingly ask them any damn things. Many times it creates a good impression that 'hmm, so this girl knows what she's doing, so she's smart enough, lets hire her'. I mean this is how a normal employer would think, so try to do some research before you go to such fairs or use your brains. And scene here is a bit different. Firms are looking for engineers from various fields in the real sense. Not just software firms, mind you.
So we had a whole bunch of (ok, 8-9) of core electrical engg firms, same for other concentrations, financial firms, software companies, HR depts, govt agencies. So students from every strata had a chance here.
It surely was a different experience, as the dress code was strictly followed, only your resume would speak for you instead of an aptitude test, and the goodies they distributed.
I went with 10 resume in my file, and came back with a bag full of goodies (highlighters, sticky pads, piggy banks, lip balms, key chains, pencils, pens, diaries, etc. etc. whoosh !!) and the satisfactory smile of dropping 8 resume at meaningful firms. Only 2 have asked me to apply online again, btw.