It has been a few weeks since the Georgia Tech Career Fair chaos ended and I finally got around to writing this article. You can easily Google many opinions about resumes, career fairs, interviews, etc, but I thought it would be beneficial to the community to document some of my experience with the Georgia Tech Career Fair.
This article should give you idea of the commitment associated with attending the GT Career Fair so you can properly prepare yourself to make a great impression. I will also provide you with my personal reflections or faults I encountered as well as some interview questions. I will assume you know the basics of the dress code, handshaking, and resumes.
Preparing for the Career Fair
Going to the career fair starts weeks before the actual day. Georgia Tech provides a list of companies that are attending and which major(s) they are looking to hire.
Here is an overview of what you will need to do to prepare for the Career Fair. I will explain each of these in detail below.
- Answer the question “What do you want to do for your career”?
- Pick out companies you want to speak with (10/day maximum)
- Collect relevant information about each company
- Create questions for each company and place them all on a separate sheet of paper
- Don’t forget, you are selling yourself
What do you want to do?
Before you even get started, you need to have answered a fundamental question, “What do you want to do for your career”? For most people the answer will be very vague or unknown. If you are having problems, look at your resume. You may not be able to pinpoint a specific position, but you can begin narrowing down to a specific area. For example: Electrical Engineer –>Telecommunications –>Wireless Communications… It may also help to list things you don’t want to do: Analog circuit design, DSP, Microelectronics. This will help you realize which area of your profession you are interested in and consequently should help you in deciding which companies you should speak with.
What companies could you potentially work for?
Once you are focused on an area within your profession, the next step is to have a game plan and determine which companies you want to speak with. Be selective, I made the mistake of thinking I needed to talk to as many companies as possible to maximize my job opportunities. If you attempt this, you will quickly exhaust your resources. Just decide what type of job you are looking for and if you are constrained to a geographical preference. From my experience, I would limit the number of companies you speak with to 10 per day. More than 10 and you will begin lacking the energetic vibe to convince a representative they should interview you.
Collect information about each potential company
Now that you have your list of companies, get some background information about each company. When you speak to a company representative, you want to be able to tell them something about their company. I don’t think anyone wants to hear “So tell me about your company, what do you do?” This is your responsibility! A more appropriate question would be, “I know Intel is a big supporter of WiMax, what type of work would an entry-level engineer be doing related to WiMax?” You may not be able to tell from the company website the specifics of their work, but you can use that as a question to ask. Additionally I found it quite frequently that I was interested in a business unit of a company that was not represented at the Career Fair. If this is the case, see if they can put you in contact with someone else or forward your information to an appropriate representative.
Create a list of questions for each company
Now that you have done your research, you should have questions ready for each company. I recommend creating a note sheet for each company with both general and specific questions. Here is an example of one I had for Raytheon. I recommend printing out a note sheet for each company (use front & back to reduce size) so you can write down notes from your conversation and have your questions right in front of you with space for the answers.
Don’t forget to sell yourself
Lastly when you are creating your questions and thinking about what you are going to say to each company, remember you are selling yourself. Be proactive and energetic! Make sure what you are saying you want to do matches with past experience on your resume. You will have to force information out of some representatives (especially if they are engineers). This is why it is important to have you question list with you. Remember you trying to get an interview, not a job.
Follow Through
Contrary to instinct, follow through begins while you are speaking with a representative. It is important that you convey excitement about the company and that you carefully write down the required next steps to be considered for an interview. I also like to follow up with an email to the representative I spoke with, thanking them for their time. Make sure your email is personal and restate some of your skills. For example:
Irene,
I just wanted to express my appreciation for you taking the time to interview me last night. I know we ran a little over and I hope it didn’t create friction between you and Stephanie. NI has proven to me that it has a great commitment to its future and employees through its impressive Engineering Leadership Program.
This email is just to follow-up with you and to express my strong interest in the ELP with NI.
I believe that my demonstrated performance in Electrical Engineering, combined with my strong communication and leadership skills would make me a valuable asset to NI.
If you require additional information, feel free to call me (XXX) XXX-XXXX.
Most companies will also hold information sessions in the evening. You should be prepared to attend these. Even if you don’t need to know any more information about the company, you need to go an meet (again) all the companies representatives so they can remember who you are. They see hundreds of faces at the career fair and attending an info session, so they can see your face again, separates you from the crowd.
Interviewing Questions
Interviewing has many diverse fascists. Instead of giving you tips for interviews, I will just list some of the questions I was asked. If you need more information, here is how not to interview.
Technical Marketing Position
- Why do you want to get into marketing? You have so many skills in engineering.
- What do you think about analog vs. digital, will digital entirely obsolete analog?
- If you where a product manager that had 5 potential markets for which you could enter. You only have enough resources to enter one. Which market would you choose and why?
- You express interests in WiFi, where is the WiFi market going? Has it already saturated or is there still potential growth?
Engineering Position
- Give me a situation where you went out of the way to help someone for something that wasn’t a task given to you.
- Tell me a situation where you had to tell someone “NO” and could not compromise.
- Simple programming questions about arrays and sorting.
- What is the most creative idea you have conceived and followed through with?
- Filtering, Analog signals vs. Digital. Why do we need filtering/Amplifier?
Assistant Engineer (Non Technical Interview)
- What are the top 3 characteristics that someone who knows you well would say?
- You are very involved both on and off campus. That combined with your marriage, how do you fit it all in without being stressed? How have you been able to maintain your GPA?
- What are your two biggest weaknesses?
Conclusion
The Georgia Tech career fair is a great way to seek employment, but it requires a big commitment that shouldn’t be under estimated. You should do your research before to determine which companies you want to speak with and what questions you have for them. Create a note sheet for each company to keep your information organized. Don’t forget to follow through afterwards with an email and attend the information sessions.
Does anyone else have any sample interview questions they would like to share?
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