Life after the Career Fair: The Job Hunt

Hello my fellow Engineers. Welcome to the end of the quarter. You made it; congratulations. Just two more to go and then you have sweet freedom. But wait; what about the summer? How many people have yet to find summer internships, co-ops or general jobs for this now impending summer 2008? In my locality of friends and general well wishers, there is a big whopping three and they are all seniors, with jobs, who had co-ops/internships and have senioritis like no other. I listen to this and, of course, I get slightly worried; I went to the Career Fair, isn’t that enough?! Well unfortunately, no. If you’re under the impression the job hunt ends at Career Fair, you’re slightly delusional or optimistic. Very optimistic. So, in asking a rhetorical question, what do we, as struggling college students, do to find jobs in our spare time?

A big advantage to being an Internet addict is that you are usually sitting down at a computer, surfing away on MySpace or the, bane of free time, Facebook. That free time can have an actual outlet that is not homework-, gaming- or WoW-ing out. Monster.com is probably a good site to visit as soon as you read this article because it’s free and it’s easy to use. The preconceived notion may be that Monster is a site dedicated to full-time employment in nine to five jobs but directly in the Monster filter, there are the selections for “Internships”, “Less than year experience” and other rather college-student-sensitive keywords. It’s very handy and helps you find that internship/co-op you desperately need.

Say you don’t want to use Monster.com or any of the other job search sites. Maybe you know the company for you; how do you go about getting noticed? Most major companies have a website with career information. Using whatever search engine works for you, enter in the company name, go to the site and almost always, there is a career tab at the very top of the page. Click on it and go through the sordid dance that is submitting your resume and expressing an interest in the company. They will have your name on file with your resume and may pool you into their own personal candidate choices. If you try, you will be rewarded, if you don’t, you don’t gain or lose anything.

If you are a naysayer to all this effort, take a step back, and realize how the lack of searching for a job will affect your chances later on in looking for a real job. It’s frustrating to not have any real experience and trying to break into an industry dependent on you knowing what you are doing. Just remember this; the degree is nothing without knowing what you are doing and knowing how any of your classes are pertinent to your future as an engineer or as anything else. It’s time to get up and start thinking beyond Rose, beyond week long breaks and actually getting down to what’s beyond that: the real world.