Career Fairs and Low Blood Sugar

Hi everyone. Sorry again for the lack of updates. Things have been crazy busy as usual.

But this time, I have a new excuse. From Sept. 11th-13th here at the UIUC campus, we have our Engineering EXPO, which is the Midwest’s largest career fair for engineers (or something like that), so I’ve been busy preparing for it, and today was day 1 of the extravaganza.

I’ll tell you a little secret. These things make me really nervous. I have no problems talking to representatives and selling myself, but I get nervous nevertheless. The whole job hunt experience for us going-to-be-graduating-soon-from-college folks is very stressful, and I am no exception to this annoying little lemma.

Normally I kind of do a kind of hand-out-my-resume-and-chat-for-a-while dance, but this time I’m going to be a little more focused in my search. I’m mostly interested in consulting companies that utilize technical & analytical skills, so basically business & technology consulting, software consulting , and even management consulting companies. There’s a good chunk of them this time around and I’m looking forward to meeting their reps.

My personal bane, however, are the recruiting representatives who care more about your GPA than that fantastic internship experience that’s the highlight of your resume, or your astounding skill sets. To some companies (and I notice this particularly with larger consulting companies) you are just a number until you get past the preliminary interview stage. This time around I think I’m going to avoid their booths. The only information they seem to provide you with is “well you should really do this-and-that on your resume.” Gee, thanks lady.

I do have one useful tip for you fellow job hunters out there: eat properly. All I’ve had today is a cup of morning coffee and an iced coffee from an ice cream shop. Coffee-fueled job searches aren’t exactly what the doctor ordered, so to make sure you guys have plenty of energy, eat a good breakfast before you head out to the career zoo…er, fair.

I should definitely take my own advice starting tomorrow. Two more days of this? Lets hope I make it.