HOW TO: UNC Career Fairs for Computer Science majors

UNC is mainly a liberal arts school, and typically, we don't get very many technology-oriented companies at our Career Fair (as to be expected). It is a little disjointing to go to one, (suits? consulting companies?) but there are always a few companies that go to recruit for tech.-minded folks, and I don't think it's bad practice to go meet a few recruiters, shake a few hands, and disseminate your resume like you're Genghis Khan.

This HOW TO is motivated by my friend Max's questions to me regarding the Career Fair. I've been to the annual one as a freshman and as a sophomore, and the Internship Fair as a freshman. FWIW, I haven't gotten a job directly from any of the fairs I've been to, but I have gotten a 90% covered weeklong vacation for two in Seattle (Microsoft interview) and created an important connection with a recruiter from IBM who eventually got me a job in Canada (the topic of finding a job in a country you're not living in is worth another post...)

The Career Fair is targeted towards graduating seniors who are looking for jobs. Many companies will accept your resume if you're looking for an internship, though, and I find that it's nice to get a headstart on these sorts of things, esp. for tech. internships. The general timeline for scoring a software-related internship seems to be now (September) until early February, but not much later.

All the obvious things should be done (i.e. print out a resume). Of course, listen to Career Services, as well!

I. BEFORE

As someone interested in software-related jobs, you don't have to wear a suit. In fact, I might go as far to suggest not wearing a suit. No one at your eventual job will, so why should you now? Do dress business casual, though. For men, this means dress shoes, not white socks, nice slacks, a collared shirt. For women, I'm not even going to try to cover that in this post.

There aren't that many companies looking for software folks (as stated before), so you only need to print ~10 resumes. Be prepared to acquire a lot of swag. I've seen women carry larger shoulder bags for them before. I'm not sure what you want to do as a man.

The tech. companies aren't all together, and aren't labeled in an obvious way (other than the obvious Microsoft and IBM), so it's good to check out which companies are coming in advance and research them a little.
II. WHILE

Once you're in the Smith Center, I advise doing a full circle of the possible recruiters before homing in on the ones you're actually interested in.

Smile, shake hands, introduce yourself, and ask the recruiter who they're looking for.

The recruiter will probably look over your resume, and they might circle some keywords ("Java", "Python", "C", "internship") and ask you a few questions about projects you have listed or the type of job you're looking for. This is not an interview, but this is a step to getting an interview! Treat it as such!
III. AFTER
When you leave, if you're at all interested in getting the job (and I always make sure to talk to a few recruiters who are recruiting for things I really don't care about, just to practice), make sure to get the name/email address of the recruiter to follow-up with them!



I hope this post is helpful to a few folks. I figured that if Max had questions then it's possible that others do as well.

(picture taken from UNC School of Public Health page w/o permission)