updated January 23, 2008

Thirty-two first-time companies from throughout the country sought candidates for full-time, summer internship and co-op positions at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's Winter Career Fair on January 23. The event, in the field house area of the college's Sports and Recreation Center, attracted a record 150 companies and approximately 360 recruiters/representatives, and could have rivaled the annual fall career fair, always the college's largest event, had Rose-Hulman not closed registration last week.

"We've come a long way from having 40 to 50 companies filling the lobby and adjacent rooms of the Hulman (Student) Union building," admitted Kevin Hewerdine, director of career services and employer relations, as he looked at the beehive-like scene at the career fair -- with students lining up to make favorable impressions for possible follow up interviews on Jan. 24-25 or throughout the rest of the winter quarter.

Approximately 20 percent of the companies made their first appearance on campus at the winter career fair.

"More and more companies are finding out that Rose-Hulman has excellent, hard-working engineers, scientists and mathematicians that can make a difference as a full-time employee, summer intern or through an extended co-op assignment," said Hewerdine.

Companies on the newcomers' list included Procter & Gamble, of Cincinnati, Ohio; The Dannon Company of White Plains, N.Y.; Public Buildings Service and Wolvering Trading, both of Chicago; Burns & McDonnell, of Kansas City; Cannon Design and Partak Inc., both of St. Louis; AIT Laboratories and Thomson, both of Indianapolis; Automationtechies/Automation.com, of Eden Prairie, Minn.; Bauer Controls, of Ann Arbor, Mich.; Panoramic Corporation, of Fort Wayne, Ind.; M.C. Dean Inc., of Dulles, Va.; Mead & Hunt, of Madison, Wis.; Pillar Engineering & Surveying, of Wytheville, Va.; Stray Light Optical Technologies, of Scottsburg, Ind.; Sogeti USA, of Westchester, Ill.; SSOE Inc., of Toledo, Ohio; Wolfram Research, of Champaign, Ill.; and Information Systems Experts LLC and OBS Medical, both of Carmel, Ind.

Other companies that attended Rose-Hulman's Winter Career Fair included General Motors, Rockwell Collins, Cummins, Boston Scientific, General Electric, Raytheon, Toyota, Archer Daniels Midland, Frito-Lay, Alcoa, Lexmark, Expedia, Marathon, Owens-Illinois, Sony Digital Audio Disc Corp., Subaru, U.S. Steel, Kroger and Zimmer.

A listing of all companies attending the winter fair is available at http://www.rose-hulman.edu/careerservices/FairAttendees.

College students seeking careers in engineering and computer science are finding an excellent job market this year, according to Hewerdine. He states that companies have reloaded after the fall recruiting season and are coming back to college campuses to fill additional hiring needs.

Hewerdine states that career/job fairs are the best place for persons to find leads for jobs, internships and co-op position. And, students should take advantage of the opportunities to meet as many companies as possible during a career fair.

"Just like acing an exam, preparation, preparation and more preparation is the key to making the job fair work for you," says Hewerdine. "For the same reasons that job fairs are the number one resource companies use to hire college graduates, interns and co-ops, students want the personal, face-to-face interaction that fairs give. Job fairs offer a sense of real and quality opportunities available to students and helps reinforce for many students the reasons they work so hard in college."

Rose-Hulman hosts three career fairs each school year. The next fair is scheduled for April 9 in the Sports and Recreation Center.

Hewerdine offers the following tips to persons wanting to take advantage of career/job fairs:

• Appearance Is Important: Brush off your best suit, slacks or dress and prepare to look as good in person as you do on paper. Career fairs are professional events and even if company representatives are wearing jeans, it doesn't mean you should wear them. Always dress for success.

• Take Plenty of Resumes: Plan on visiting a lot of company information booths. You will be handing out a lot of resumes and you don't want to run out. You may even want to consider having a couple of copies of your academic transcript with you, just in case. If your number one company is very interested in your coursework, having your transcript to share with them may be helpful.

• Do Your Company Research: Lists of companies coming to career fairs are available on web sites, along with company profiles. Make quick notes for yourself about each company and review them before approaching their table.

• Know What You Want: Are you looking for an internship or full-time work? Make sure you know and they know, too. Practice your introduction and let the company know exactly what you are hoping to find with the job/internship.

• Have A Top 10 List: Make a list of the top 10 companies you want to visit. Start with the bottom of the list and work your way to the top so that by the time you visit your top choice, you will have your sales pitch down to perfection.

• Prepare Questions To Ask Recruiters: Recruiters may have some basic questions to ask you, but you need to be prepared to ask them questions as well.