On February 20, day two of the Spring Career Fair for the academic year was held. This was the day dedicated to architectural, engineering, and industrial technology students. I am an architecture student, so I was at the architect’s fair, which had about 20 firms present. Ranging from small regional firms the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation to large corporate firms like the DLR Group. Given that this is an experience from the side of an architecture student, I am sure it is understood that the remainder of this article is from my perspective as an architecture student. It should also be noted that the career fair for the architects was in Crown Hall, rather than Hermann Hall.
Starting at the check-in table, it was incredibly simple, and the staff were very quick in getting folks checked in. There were refreshments and small snacks provided for students who were there for more than a few hours. After getting checked in, I headed straight to Crown’s Center Core where all the firms for the day had gathered. It was quite an extensive list of firms with a mix of positions they were hiring for. Some were hiring interns only, some hiring interns and entry level designers, and some only hiring designers. This was a subtle detail that I think Career Services had failed to inform us about and would have saved many students and recruiters a lot of time. However, I am happy to say that this was the only issue I encountered and would require little to no effort to get fixed for the next career fair.
The next aspect of this career fair was the number of employers listed online versus who arrived. I can happily say that all the firms who were listed had arrived and stayed for the entire event, speaking very enthusiastically to students throughout the fair. While I did not get to speak to all the firms due to my own time constraints, I would say most students had spoken to a fair number of firms, just as I did. This was an undeniably amazing selection of firms for architecture students career fair, which is a welcome change from last semester. A broad selection of local firms and firms that worked internationally and were willing to hire international students. The latter is something many students struggle with during a job search, so having signs that say if a firm is hiring international students I can imagine is appreciated.
Overall, my experience was great, and I look forward to future Career Fairs from Career Services with similar standards and a bit more. I think that the selection of companies, the efficiency of the check in process, and the smaller details of employment willingness from firms made this experience great.