I went to a career fair just this week and have 2 people/companies that might be interested that I am able to contact this time. We’ll see! I’m studying aerospace engineering. @GMTplus7 @intparent @cali60
A career fair is good, but at larger campuses companies sometimes send recruiters who have interview schedules through the career office.
Point noted. Thanks! @intparent
also just go on the internet and apply directly. My son got an internship for a top aerospace co after sophomore year this way.
^ I’ve done that. So far only rejections. But I’ll keep trying.
On the internet, the miss rate is higher and your resume really has to be on point. But it offers some great opportunities and offers strength in numbers.
Career fairs have some luck element too - you have to get lucky to have a chance to talk to the people you want and to have them care enough to listen to you. If you want to work somewhere where H1-B’s would be sponsored, good luck.
Job opportunities come in many places.
It seems to vary by industry. My Com Sci kid secured his summer internship in the fall. He started the process at the college’s Fall Career fair. His engineer friends found more opportunities at the Jan/Feb career fair. Ask the placement office what they would recommend. My original answer was going to be every month until he finds something or the right thing. But it sounds like your question has more to do with when to expect success than when to start looking.
My department head got me my first engineering job. That would be the first person to link to on LinkedIn.
Now that I have just spent the last month looking through ads, I know the answer. Career fairs are only helpful if you happen to go to a school that has a lot of engineering companies visiting. My son’s school does not. I realize that now by googling other engineering school’s list of employer’s at their fairs and I am amazed at the number of engineering companies that come. Like night and day in the number.
Second, it depends on the type of company/job you want. In real life, smaller companies are not hiring in Sept or Jan for a job to start in June. They are advertising for a new hire to start in the next couple of months. So starting in Jan/Feb is just fine. Gives the student practice writing different versions of their cover letter while scoping out what is out there.
And most schools seem to have a spring career fair so if you do want to apply to a larger company, you still have time. I have noticed many of those large companies that have “New Grad” programs still are advertising for them on their websites so they must not have entirely filled them yet.
After watching this thread for a while, the correct answer is similar to the best time to plant a tree - the best time to look for a job is last month. The second best is today. You can have a strategy for best use of your time, but once you are a senior, it’s time to get started.
Off topic, but did anyone else think of this when the read the title of this thread?
LOL - I had never seen that clip before… very funny!
" My son’s school does not. I realize that now by googling other engineering school’s list of employer’s at their fairs and I am amazed at the number of engineering companies that come." - That’s a key point. Some of us have kids that opted for mostly-engineering schools. There are pros/cons to that path. But I think the the job hunting tends to be easier.
Yes. I was amazed. I found the lists to a few other schools with large engineering programs and clearly the number of engineering employers are almost overwhelming. This is Rose-Hulman’s. There are 15 pages full of employers broken out by Engineering major. http://www.rose-hulman.edu/media/1762051/2016-winter-cf-attendees.pdf
I agree that there are pros and cons to going to Eng focused schools. But, what I can’t figure out is in this day and age, why are career fairs still done in person instead of virtual career fairs.
Why don’t they have students send their resumes first, then be given a 5 min slot to talk with a recruiter via Skype or FaceTime like speed dating. This generation would be fine with doing it this way and imagine the money all these companies would save on flights, hotel costs, car rentals etc.
From what I hear from DD (and her fiancee and 20-something college grad friends)… beyond college a lot of “first interviews” (and sometimes even 2nd interviews) are indeed done by phone or video skype. But I think companies find it easy to interface with a large group of college students at once via job fair.
Op I didn’t read the entire thread so I don’t know if someone suggested LinkedIn and a headhunter. My ME son graduated in May 2014 without a job. He asked me to give him a month before I nagged him to get one. At the end of June he contacted Aerotek, an employment agency, and had 6 or 7 interviews and had a job in a month. He did find that almost all of them were 3 or 6 month contracts first with an option to hire. His was six months before he became an employee. He also found that pay levels were a little lower than he expected in our area for a new ME graduate.
Thanks @kjcphmom. It is good to hear that someone’s son found work after he graduated.
My son figured in March/April if he really wasn’t finding something by then to sign up with a recruiter. Aerotek places some decent ads I have seen and I think Kelly is another big recruiter. I think that is a good idea because there are probably jobs that the recruiters know about that may not make it to the ads.
Linkedin is great. Very helpful.
How is the search @lakemom? Something to also think about is that when you send resumes on the internet to a company the recruiter at a large company is not looking at each one. There are programs so key words on the resume are very important. Same for putting keywords on a linkedin profile. There are some free online programs on the internet that will scan your resume and let you know if you need those keywords. Sorry, its been a few yrs so I can’t recall the companies but a google search would be easy.
All of my son’s internships were applying directly to a company. The job he will have after graduation was via career fair.
Also use those lists of companies (where recruiters went to other schools) to send resumes to. The companies can only go to so many schools. Use it to your advantage to know who hires college interns and grads. It helped my son in identifying companies to send resumes to.
good luck