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Going to a career fair, no idea what to do
TwistedJester
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Registered User regular
This coming Wednesday I'm planning on attending the career fair being held by the university I graduated from this past spring. The thing is, I've never been to a career fair so I don't really know how to prepare or what to do aside from bring a ton of resumes. I've read that I should look up what companies are going to be there, but for the life of me I can only find the fair's big sponsors.
So can anyone offer me pointers?
If it helps at all, I have a BS in Computer Science and I'd like to find a job that would make use of the education I have received.
So can anyone offer me pointers?
If it helps at all, I have a BS in Computer Science and I'd like to find a job that would make use of the education I have received.
TwistedJester on
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My school has workshops and shit when they do the career fair thing to make sure you know how to act. It's basically like a big fair with booths laid out for companies. Kinda approach them and make your little spiel on why they should hire you, give them a resume and ask any questions you might want to ask. I mean, it's like open interviews to whom every walks up. Lotta competition though, so you gotta be on point.
I usually like to spent a few minutes doing some research on the company before I approach them. Never hurts to have a little vague idea of what the do and what they having going on business-wise. There's really not list of companies planning to attend? How far away is this thing?
Be prepared to fill out applications on-line. Keep Business cards; write everyone you get a card from a personal e-mail expressing thanks and interest.
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Another thing I'm not sure about is how to organize my resume. What I mean is, as of right now, it's about 1.5 pages. So should I just make two pages and staple them together, or should I just print on both sides? Or should I do something else altogether?
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Ditto. A buddy of mine once thought it was smart to do THREE PAGES when he was basically at entry level. Needless to say, he had no bites until he edited it down.
Education: Where is your GPA? I wouldn't bother with the high school stuff.
Relevant Coursework: missing an 'e', first of all. Proofread this super carefully before you upload it anywhere. Easy mistakes are killer. Somebody in DnD chat just found out they'd been sending out resumes with a typo'd phone number for months.
I would rename the courses, unless you feel that to be dishonest.
"Intermediate Java Programming (Learned core OOP concepts such as polymorphism and inheritance)" is a little shorter without losing any information.
"Discrete Structures for Computer Science" becomes "Discrete Structures"
"Data Structures" is sufficient, unless you want to add more detail than you have now. Employers will know that Data Structures covered lists, heaps, and trees, and they won't care what language you covered them in. Beware of using words like "efficient." How efficient were they? Show me on this whiteboard. *takes notes* Bear in mind that your resume nabbing you an interview is only helpful if you can cash the checks your resume wrote, so it's important not to accidentally imply more than you mean to imply.
The algorithms class is tricky... I wouldn't list the problems, but you need more than DP if you want to give details for it. Did you cover Amortized Analysis? Greedy Algorithms? Add those in if so. Again, language is not relevant here.
I don't actually know what "Formal Methods in CS means". I would add a little explanotry detail there.
"Applied Statistical Methods" seems fine.
"Software Design Methodology": the details you've added aren't the ones I would care about. What methodologies did you learn? Can you talk to me about different lifecycles? The mythical man-month? Cohesion and Coupling?
Cryptography: This one is good.
DBMS: I don't particularly like this one... It seems like it could be stronger but I'm not sure how.
"Programming Languages for Web Applications" is okay, but if you need to trim, you could cut it to "Web Programming Languages: Studied MYSQL, PHP, Javascript, and other web programming languages."
"Computer Organization and Assembly Language" seems fine.
Your skills section worries me. Either you're far more knowledgeable than I was out of college, or an experienced interviewer drilling you on some of these subjects could put you in a lot of trouble. I found it useful to distinguish between what languages I was "proficient in" and what languages I was "familiar with." Don't ever use the word expert, though!
Work Experience: The Valspar Corporation entry is way too long, but each bullet is useful and important, so leave as much as you can. Maybe change the third bullet to "Ported applications from Corda to Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services."
I would drop the Pittsburgh Zoo to 2 lines.
"Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium (Summer 2002, 2003, 2005)
- Food preparation and cashier work
I would drop the Activities section. I think your resume will be plenty full without it.
Did you receive any awards or honors while at school? Dean's List, Honorable Mention, Scholarships? A short honors section can be nice.
I kept the HS stuff on there because I'm planning on staying in Pittsburgh, and my dad says alumni from my high school tend to help each other out whenever possible.
The algorithms class was mostly just dynamic programming.
Formal Methods in CS was stuff like truth tables, logic, things like that.
The Software Design class was a joke. I honestly learned very little aside from some stuff about designing software as components. I only list it because a lot of the people who have taken it said it looks good on a resume.
Another little problem is that I'm not sure what I really want to do. The stuff I enjoyed the most is the work I did in my DBMS class and my web programming class (the most enjoyable of which involved MySQL). I'm not necessarily looking to work for a software development firm. I think I'd be perfectly ok just doing database administration.
First the bad news. Your GPA isn't great. That was usually the first question we'd ask. If it was below 3.0, we'd smile, take your resume and file it the no callback pile. What's your GPA in your major? If it's higher, I'd put that on there.
Cut it down to a page. We'd usually get at least 40+ resumes at these things and that was when the economy was good. We want to be able to scan a resume fairly quickly and make a decision to do a pre screen or not. Lose the objective, it's nothing special for someone coming out of school.
Move up the internship/work experience. That's a big plus, it shows that you've worked in an actual corporate environment and have some experience. Can you be a little more specific about the applications you worked on? If that means you cut some of the high school stuff or activities, that's fine. If I can see that you've actually delivered a few working programs for a company, I'd be much more interested in bringing you in.
Generally, what I like to see in the format is: Contact Info, Technical Skills, Work Experience, School Information, Coursework. Especially for technical candidates.
And a lot of companies don't list new grad positions on their websites. They almost always fill those by going to career fairs or through college placement offices.
That's all I've got right now off the top of my head.
My college roommate scored his first summer internship by wearing a "Download" t-shirt with a cartoon of a guy sitting on a toilet. Some companies wouldn't talk to him, but the ones that did sure remembered the dude with the download t-shirt. This is an extreme example, to be fair, but the moral of the story is that he stood out in the crowd.
Don't worry about it. Can you write a basic program in them? Know how they work?
We never expect any fresh grads to be completely "proficient" in a language right out of the gate.
"Mr./Mrs. X,
I would first like to thank you for talking to me at the career fair about your company and the positions available within it. I wish to re-iterate my interest in working for you and would like to remind you that if you need any further information, please feel free to contact me. Again, thank you for your time."
Also, I talked to one or two companies that seemed very interested in my resume, however they never mentioned their names when I shook their hand, had no business cards to give out and as a result of my nervousness, I forgot to ask them for their name. Should I just shoot off an e-mail to their HR department and hope it gets bounced around to the right person?
Become proficient. All it takes is practice once you've been taught the basics, and coding positions often have tests at the interview. Obviously not much help for the hiring fair, but for the future. It'll make more difference in your employability as a CS grad than anything else, unless you want to focus purely on hardware.
It could be different where you are, but the one I went to you were not expecting to know anything about the companies, in fact a lot of them were fine with you not knowing anything about them as long as you ask questions and seem genuinely interested in hearing their spiel. Of course remember to take resumes, always ask for a business card and take any brouchers that are at their booth.
I know sometimes the actual people hiring are the ones at the booth, so you may want to follow up with them a day or 2 later