Categories
Engineering Life Work

How to Work a Job Fair as an Engineer

Clarification: When I write “work a job fair”, I mean how to get the most out of it as a student or job seeker. This could be confused with the fact that I sometimes recruit at job fairs, but I thought this should be brought up at the beginning after I re-read the article.

In talking to a fellow engineer about to attend a career fair, I realized I had some advice for him, having gone so many times in the past. I’ve even been back a few times to recruit for my current company and being on the other side of the handshake is an interesting insight into the do’s and don’ts.

  1. As soon as you realize they want you to apply online, ditch.
    • First off, this was a pet peeve of mine as an attendee and is to this day. As soon as HR departments at large companies realized they could just use computers to filter the resumes of prospective employees instead of reading them (yeah, I’m looking at you Big Blue), they did it as fast as they could. The result was that you now walk around job fairs talking to people and handing out resumes, only to assume those people will be throwing it away ten minutes later (“Why did I print that on paper that costs 50 cents a sheet?!?”). In the event you’re talking to someone from a company and you even overhear a different recruiter asking someone to apply online (assuming you hear it before you’re told directly to do so), kindly end the conversation with the person you’re talking to and write in your notes to apply later. Job fairs are to make first impressions; if the employers’ representatives are not taking notes on the people they are talking to, they really are only wasting your time.
  2. Be excited
    • Enthusiasm is contagious. It can make any conversation more exciting and in the case of the recruiters, less routine. They have many of the same conversations over and over throughout the day, often with people that don’t show particular enthusiasm for what they are talking about. More importantly, enthusiasm about your chosen field is a precursor to another trait that I feel is particularly important in any field: passion. Without it, you probably won’t be able to hold your interest long enough to become an expert in your field. And I mean a real expert, not like those silly people online that start blogs and call themselves experts. Haha.
  3. Be excited, but show a little modesty
    • Before you go off the rails and start spouting all of your best characteristics to a potential employer, remember a few things:
      1. Designing something in school is much different than designing something in the real world.
      2. No one wants to hear every single detail of your design project upon first meeting you.
      3. As an engineer, getting a design job just out of school is difficult and unlikely. The majority of engineers use their degree to launch into other types of jobs. I’m not saying you shouldn’t shoot for a design job if you want one, I’m just saying the expectation shouldn’t be that you will be handed one (and you should keep your mind open to all opportunities).
      4. If you present your past work correctly, the work will speak for itself. In fact, succinctly describing your achievements in an understandable way will help to show your enthusiasm much better than you trying to squeeze 500 words into a 1 minute time period. Show them that you are really proficient in the area you’re targeting and you’ll get recruiters clamoring to know how much you really know (and eventually what it’ll take to get you on their team).
  4. Forget the give-aways
    • The pens and t-shirts and yo-yo’s and other stuff they give away at these events are fun to get and sometimes quirky, but essentially worthless. If you want to get free stuff with a logo on it, go get the job from the company and worry about the branded crap later. Focus your time and resources on meeting people, not collecting widgets.
  5. Figure out what skills they’re looking for
    • No amount of preparatory work researching the companies you’re targeting will let you know what skills a company is looking for. Hell, it’s in the company’s interest to be vague when they list what kind of employee they’re looking for so the maximum number of people will stop by their booth. This is one of your most important tasks at career fairs; in fact, it’s one of the few reasons to stick around and continue talking to a representative from a company once you have found out they only accept applications online. Talk to the engineers that work in groups you would want to work in (wait to talk to them if there is a line) and find out what they look for in potential candidates. In fact, ask them that, “What do you look for in potential candidates who would be hired for YOUR position?”. It might sound a little weird, like you want to replace them with yourself, but it’s the most direct way to know what skills and techniques you need to have to work there. If you have those skills, awesome. If you don’t, work on getting those skills, however you can.
  6. Know what you like and don’t like and tell them about it
    • This hearkens back to being enthused about the field you’re studying. In the event you’re not very capable in transmitting your enthusiasm to the person you’re talking to, stating what you do and don’t like can help to showcase what you’re really trying to do with your career. But it’s also important because you can narrow down the companies that can actually offer you a job. If you’re really interested in embedded systems but you’re talking to  a company that only works on designing silicon, stating what you’re interested in can be a real time saver. If you’re not particularly fond of working on spreadsheets or databases and you say so, you can quickly be informed by the company you’re talking to that those things would be the main job function of any potential employees. In stating what you really like and dislike, you basically turn a career fair into a speed-dating service, quickly going through all of the options at a particular event and honing in on those that have real potential.
  7. Brush your teeth. Wear a clean shirt. Don’t be a robot.
    • I only wish this was more obvious to people than it is. I’ve already been pointing out that career fairs are only as useful as the impressions you make on potential employers; sometimes it’s also about the resume you hand them.  But if the whole ordeal is about impressions, some people don’t get it. Look decent, smell decent, smile decent. These are all things that are easy but immediately put you out of the running if you get them wrong. Remember the lollipop first question for $100 on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”? Remember some of the dodos who got it wrong and had to immediately leave the stage? Don’t be one of them.

Do I know everything about job fairs? No, I know very little. I personally never really liked them as a potential employee. I’d rather stand out to an employer  by connecting on a personal level with a recruiter and then showcasing what I know. There just isn’t time for that at career fairs. But if you or the employers you’re interested in working for consider career fairs a necessary evil, I think the tips listed above can have a positive effect on some of your interactions.

What kinds of things do you try to do at job/career fairs? Can those things be done by engineers at career fairs or are they specific to another profession? Please let us know in the comments.

Categories
Economics Learning Politics Work

Unorthodox City Development

Although I’ve been busy working on Electricio.us lately (thereby neglecting this site), I have been able to continue listening to my local NPR station (which, like any good nerd, I love). A program the other day spoke to a local community trying to build up the economy through the arts.

I was intrigued. I had never thought of that before. Why would anyone ever try to develop an arts community first? Where are the jobs? Well folks, we have a bona fide Chicken and Egg paradox here. It really goes both ways. What happens if a community only has day jobs and no culture? What happens if you develop a thriving arts community before there are “Economic Drivers” and jobs for people moving there?  Does the absence of one element slow the growth of the other?

I would tend to think the jobs come first. And of course when I think jobs I think of technical jobs, not those silly financial jobs that got us into this mess of a recession. I mostly think of technical jobs first because I’ve never really experienced anything else and I’ve heard technical jobs can have a multiplicative effect (helping to create some of the other jobs I’m not as fond of). But what happens in locations where there are only jobs and no culture to go along with it? Who really wants to live there?

An example is contained within Eric Weiner’s book, The Geography of Bliss (which I first read about at Get Rich Slowly). He is traveling the world, looking to explain why some locales are happier than others. In the midst of his travels, he goes to Qatar (one of the richest regions in the world) where he encounters a city booming with jobs (mostly for migrant workers) to fill the “need” of those rich from petrodollars. However, he notes the absence of culture and even references how the richest from that country travel the world buying up impressive art collections in a hope to obtain culture. The result is a city full of people being shuttled to and from chain restaurants and malls, without any interesting things in between. Even the history museum is filled with artifacts toil and struggle in the desert…and not much else. Because the jobs in the region are scarce, no one really wants to be there, but no one working there can really leave.

The other extreme is when a city has a strong art and culture community but is lacking in jobs. An example is New York City in the current recession. Even though the current unemployment numbers are hovering around 10.3%, people continue to move to the city. Why? Because you can’t find many other places in the world with a similar art and culture scene. Where else can you find so many museums in a 10 mile radius? But when it comes to being practical? No, not so much. The fact that the unemployment is only 10.3% is likely because of the high costs associated with living in or even near the city.

So back to the original example. Would starting an arts community allow for eventual development of a thriving economy? It depends. Are there other nearby communities that can feed into this new community? Are those other communities lacking in culture or interesting events of their own, thereby necessitating people in that community to travel? Are there people in the existing community that will be benefactors to the new community? And most importantly, are there people willing to move to and develop a new arts and culture based community?

If there is a willing population, both moving to and surrounding a new (or revitalized) community, then I believe it would be possible to use arts and culture to build up a local economy. I think that it is a non-standard way to draw young and artistic people into a new place and to centralize events and gatherings; this, in turn, could help to draw people that aren’t contributing to the art and cultural scene directly but want to experience and patronize it. I know that Cleveland, with excessive sprawl and thinly populated suburbs, could really benefit from a community such as this (really it will be supplementing many other creative and culturally rich regions). Although the travel required between regions is undesirable, I think creating an arts community can really help to bring people together, which is really what drives economic growth over the long term. Do I think there will ever be large corporations moving in and bringing thousands of jobs to this revitalized community? No, I don’t; but that’s not really the point anyway.

I’m interested to know if anyone has heard of other communities built first around cultural and artistic endeavors that later blossomed into vibrant communities. If you have ever heard of one or have an opinion about what they’re trying in Cleveland, please leave a note in the comments.

Categories
Blogging Engineering Learning Life

A Day of Labor: My New Website and Project

It wasn’t just today. It wasn’t really the day last week when I registered my new domain name. It was pretty soon after starting this blog that I realized how much more powerful having a website with multiple contributors to keep a consistent flow of information. “Welcome to the party!”, right? I realize there are a lot of other sites that take advantage of this idea. I didn’t think of it earlier though so here’s my chance. And here’s your chance too.

I am now on the hunt for the most articulate and technically proficient EEs and quasi-EEs out there. I plan to use this new website as a warehouse for important electrical engineering knowledge I wish I always had. I still wish I have it, because it can be very hard to keep track of (ever searched through that old pile of industry magazines? Yeah, me neither). Sure, there are sites out there like EDN and EETimes that have some spectacular writers and some interesting insight into the industry; however, I have always felt their hands were tied by a business model built upon advertising revenues that also might happen to maybe, possibly, sometimes on the harvest moon, when the winds are blowing right…influence the articles (at least in terms of what is written about). Maybe not, but it feels that way. Moreover, it feels like there is less technical content on those sites than there used to be. It’s understandable, the recession is kicking everyone’s butt, and it’s not taking it easy on the publishing industry. But the point remains, I want a place where I can consistently go to for up to date information about skills and techniques and I want to be able to understand it. I want it to be written by the top engineers and scientists out there and I want it to be in a format that is instantly applicable and useful.

As for ChrisGammell.com, I don’t really plan on changing too much. I will still write articles somewhere between technical and non-technical and try to post as often as I can. However, I think for my long term writing, I need to be part of a site that is on neutral ground and with a community built around it. I, like many in my generation, was raised working in teams and I think this will be the best format to help disseminate knowledge to others in the future.

If you are interested in contributing to a site such as this, please feel free to contact me and let me know what you would like to contribute. If you have a suggestion for the new site please leave a note in the comments below. I always appreciate feedback (even negative feedback! heh).

So let’s see, I told you my plans, I explained why I think they are important to me and others, I explained what would (or would not) happen to this site and I suggested you contact me if you’re interested in joining. Am I forgetting something?

Ah yes. The new site and community I started is called Electricio.us. I hope you like it.

Screenshot-Electricio-us

Categories
Analog Electronics Renewable Energy Sustainability

The Sustainability/Renewable Energy Jumble

I get it. Some of you out there don’t give a hoot about sustainability. I figured that out when people started unsubscribing from email subscriptions to my post feed. Sure, it could have been people switching over to an RSS feed reader, but it coincided with my posts about the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 summit (I may have gotten carried away with the writing).

For a while I was writing only about analog stuff, electrical engineering stuff and workplace stuff. To be honest, when the recession hit it was difficult to think of much else; when our security feels threatened (job, personal or otherwise), we revert to more basic creatures. It’s funny that we care most about the environment (the population as a whole) only when there is nothing  wrong with the economy. That is, if you don’t include gas prices; it seemed like we definitely felt threatened at $4 a gallon for unleaded. Anyway, I focused a little more on the electrical side of things whereas this site started out more on the renewable energy side of things.

And then I had the opportunity to attend the summit and it was really great. I met some awesome people and really got to see a side of Cleveland I never thought I’d see. It renewed my interest in renewable energy applications/technology and got me excited about the prospects of working on it in Cleveland. But I wasn’t completely satisfied with the summit. I found my experiences a few weeks later at a wind energy talk with Larry Viterna of the Great Lakes Energy Institute to be much more satisfying. Sitting and discussing the technical issues involved in a renewable energy system is much more appealing to me than going out in the community and rallying support for the idea (though I definitely understand the importance of doing so). I always feel that I am getting more done when I discuss the technical aspects of a project than the logistical aspects; it is not realistic to ever ignore one or the other, I just feel that I can contribute more to the technical side, due to my interest.

As a result of all of those experiences, I think I figured something out: I am much more interested in renewable energy and the technology behind it than the sustainability movement and working on how best to implement the methodologies. I completely agree with the concept of sustainability and try to lessen my personal impact by improving the energy efficiency of my house and changing my personal habits. However, I view sustainability as a management field whereas I view renewable energy as a technological field (a simplification I’m sure); right now, I am much more interested in technical matters than management matters.

As for the jumble of sustainability and renewable energy talk on this site and others, it’s important to realize they are different topics, yet intertwined. One cannot exist without the other: sustainable businesses require low cost, non-polluting power and renewable energy has greater demand when sustainable companies want a renewable source of power. As such, I plan to write only about the renewable energy topics, unless there are implications with sustainable business/life practices.

So while I do not plan on going out and knocking on the doors of businesses and homes to start pushing them to adopt sustainability practices, I do want to relay why I think they are important. Moreover, I want to point out the concepts I would embrace when I start my company (someday in the future). And even if I was completely detached from the business world, I feel that the benefits of adopting sustainability are relevant in my personal life and can have some serious implications for the future.

  1. It saves you money — The zero-waste concept is a powerful one; it also can save a ridiculous amount of money for you or your business if you properly plan an execute a plan of action. If you don’t have to pay for waste removal, don’t have to pay extra for unused raw materials and possibly even get paid for recycling some of your spent resources, you can save or net a significant amount of cash.
  2. It makes you less of a burden on the planet — This point doesn’t have any immediate benefits, but makes sense. Look all around you at every living thing: they all give back to their environment in some way. Humans aren’t great at matching this performance, but there is a movement to begin consuming less and being less of a burden on the planet.
  3. It’s not hard — Yes, you will have to watch your production processes and make sure you aren’t unnecessarily creating waste. Yes, you might have to pay a little bit more for clean energy from the electric company or have renewable energy capability installed at your facility/home. Yes, you will have to recycle instead of sending it to a landfill. But once the mindset is in place it becomes second nature.
  4. It saves you money — I can’t stress idea enough. Sustainable business practices make money. That’s why you see corporate giants like Walmart joining the party and delivering added value to their shareholders.

I plan to continue to focus on renewable energy research and applications, as it is where my greatest interests lie in the whole scope of the sustainability movement. I know there are many many more components that I will not be able to contribute to as a leader but will be able to adhere to as an ecologically concious citizen. What do you enjoy more? The renewable energy side of things, the sustainability side of things or none of the above? Let me know in the comments!