school's career center??

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I've been coming across quite a few thread's about the importance of the school's career center. How exactly do they operate? Is this the same as career fairs?</p>

<p>I'm a recent graduate and at my school we have career fairs but at least in the engineering department there isn't much help from the career center. The career center has a bunch of random postings but not many of which are engineering. The Civil + Environmental department will send out a couple postings a term...but thats all. How is it at other schools?</p>

<p>Note: I managed to get a job but I'm just wondering how easy it is for ppl at other places.</p>

2

<p>At good engineering schools, the career services department will handle everything. First, they’ll hold resume review sessions where they teach you how to write an effective resume. Then they’ll bring in hiring managers from major companies to further review your resume and give advice.</p>

<p>Next, they’ll have mock interview sessions where they teach you how to act, what to wear, and what to say in an interview. Again they’ll bring in professional recruiters to interview you and give feed back. This is very interesting because you’ll hear “this is what you said… and this is the impression it gave me…” which will teach you to present yourself in the best light.</p>

<p>After that, they’ll have (dozens, if not a hundred or more) company info sessions where 3-4 recruiters from a company will come to campus and give a presentation on their company to 20-30 students. You can ask questions, meet with recruiters, etc.</p>

<p>In addition the school will help to schedule recruiter interaction events. For example, tailgating parties before football games, where selected students can go and meet with employees from the company.</p>

<p>Finally, they’ll organize interviews. They’ll maintain an internal job posting site (like Monster but only for students) with thousands of positions specifically for your school. If you meet the qualifications of the interviewers, the company will come to campus and interview you on campus (the school arranges a date, time, and a room). Also, if a company is comes to campus on short notice, the career services department can pull resumes of students that have no accepted offers and can hand select students for the company to interview.</p>

<p>At schools with good career services departments, 90+% of students that have jobs at graduation are hired through their career services department. Because interviews are so accessible, you’ll see students go on 10+ interviews before graduation, have 3-5 offers, and get to choose where to live and what to do. Top students can easily have 30+ interviews and 10+ offers.</p>

<p>If I had to choose a college and had no interest in graduate school, my #1 deciding factor would be the quality of the career services department. Start then then worry about rankings, location, social scene, etc.</p>

3

<p>I think a lot depends on the major/program you are in.</p>

<p>Back in the “old days” when I was in school, recruiters by-passed the career center and came straight to the department. I just checked with my DH and he says that the recruiters from his company do the same thing. </p>

<p>And the graduate program I worked for also had recruiters come directly to the department. I was in charge of coordinating all of that, so I played the role of the Career Center (much as BanjoHitter described), but I did it on my own with only our students.</p>