<p>For engineers, when looking for an internship, do you think recruiters put more value into the individual program's prestige or the overall school's prestige? How about when looking for a job?</p>
<p>They put most value on the individual, his/her past projects and his motivation and persona that come across in an interview. You may be a dick from Stanford and you won’t be employed, because you’re a dick, not because you aren’t coming from Stanford.</p>
<p>You may also have done great coursework, but no significant personal practical projects or projects for the community, which are a certain given for “being interested in engineering”. How’s one then going do determine what the individual has experience in besides theory and coursework?</p>
<p>Getting into a good school may be an indicator that the invidual has been determined and succesful in his/her studies, but by itself it’s not the full story for any kind of employment (because of e.g. the “if one’s a dick” argument above). Although some companies have HR departments that do scanning by either the school one attended or the degree that one has acquired, to reject those that don’t have the “qualifications” that the company prefers. Although, when one has enough experience, the school and degree become irrelevant compared to the expertise and experience that one has.</p>
<p>Another BIG consideration they have is how well you performed in the classes you took at whichever school you did attend. A student with a 2.0 at a very prestigious school won’t have as many opportunities as a student with a 4.0 at a less prestigious, but still accredited program.</p>
<p>I also advised my son to carefully consider a minor that will pair well with engineering. As a Civ-E major, he’s minoring in Spanish, which in some parts of the country may wind up being very beneficial. It is also worthwhile to take some businesses classes. Anything that will make your resume stand out from the crowd.</p>
<p>Interviewing skills are CRITICAL. If you aren’t comfortable in interviews, go to the career center at your school and go through practice interviews. The more you do, the more comfortable they become.</p>
<p>My S’s at Bama, which certainly isn’t considered a prestigious school, but he got a 4.0 GPA his first semester, has his Spanish minor, has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, and has travelled abroad both during high school and in college. He was able to interview for a position that we located (not arranged through the school) in the Chicago area and was able to handle the interview well enough that he received an internship in his field after his freshman year.</p>
<p>Poeple may think this is common sense but…the one thing I would say is once you get an internship be smart about it. My husband works for a large company that has internships. I think HR is the one that hires them mostly from Ivy’s and certain colleges. Anyway he is amazed that half of them actually expect him to drop whatever he is doing and help them with their projects on their time table. lol. You will get a lot farther by respecting and valuing the employees time. When interns do that he is a lot more likely to put in the extra mile to help them. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. What about when looking for a job though?</p>
<p>Not to sound pessimistic here but out of 20-odd interns this year the majority had a hook such as a parent working for the company… Never mind the university.</p>
<p>At some companies, hiring relatives of current employees into the company, or close enough part of the company, is prohibited by company policy.</p>
<p>When looking for a job the biggest factor is having work experience on your resume. Internships, co-ops, or other work experience related to your field will look best. If you can’t find ANY work related to your field, even having work experience at Wal-mart or ‘flipping burgers’ will look better than never having a job.</p>
<p>Research experience and/or related volunteer experience can also be very beneficial experience.</p>
<p>Having great references (preferably from those work experiences) is another BIG factor.</p>
<p>The next biggest factor will be how well you conduct yourself in an interview and how well they perceive you as a ‘fit’ within their company and for the position. A STRONG interviewer will often get a job offer before someone with a better academic record.</p>
<p>Then they will look at the classwork you took and how well you performed in it, especially coursework related to the position. Most employers won’t care too much how you did in your history classes, so long as you passed and graduated, but poor performance in related coursework may cause them to believe you can’t handle that type of work or that you aren’t interested enough to put effort into it.</p>
<p>The only manner where you went to school really matters is that certain businesses recruit at certain schools and/or have relationships with them. A recommendation from a professor may go a lot farther if they have personal connections within a company (perhaps it is a former student they taught that is doing the hiring). If you go to a lesser known school or a school that doesn’t work with many employers in the region where you hope to work, then you will have to put forth more effort to find employers in those areas.</p>
<p>We have some policies like that in place but for regular employees, not interns. As a result nearly half the intern slots are ‘internal’. I’m not saying unqualified, mind you, as most of the kids are from Big 10, east, and west schools, but still… A decade ago when we had a much bigger intern program (translation: before we figured out it was not as effective as we thought it was (*)) it was relatively easier to get a spot. </p>
<p>(*) Let’s just say that after supervising several interns I was quite impressed with their skills, not a surprise given the schools they came from, but I did not find them contributing anything long term to my projects… They do learn a lot about the ‘social’ aspects of how engineer-lings behave, and learn a thing or two about our projects, but unfortunately what we do has a major learning cliff of a year or two, so unless we have returning co-op kids for several cycles, testing, or very specific skills i.e. write an Android up to do such and such, it really has not paid out for us. I feel that upper management may have figured out as much as we now have a quarter of the interns we had ten years ago…</p>
<p>^ That may be why some companies do co-op’s where students are set up to come back for 3 or more terms instead of 1 term internships.</p>
<p>Co-ops are more useful, true, but the thing with them is that they once again cost the company a lot of money and at the end if the coop kid chooses another employer we’ve wasted 3-4 cycles on them with no return to us. </p>
<p>Naturally I realize that there are many reasons coops won’t work for us adter they graduate but ultimately I feel for us the reasons are non fixable - i.e. location: rust belt, can’t do much about that, starting salaries: likewise, cyclical business: likewise, and so on. So, the students and their employers get the benefit while all we get is to pay real good salaries for 3-4 cycles, get one productive cycle out of them, and a handshake at the end.</p>