ooh, first blood!

Ooh, tonight marks the first of a special occasion... my first rejection of this year's recruiting season!

Yes, y'all might think I'm utterly nuts to use an exclamation point to say that I've been rejected from a company, but to be honest I'm grateful I got an interview at this company at all. I was the only non finance major interviewing for a finance position at this very prestigious company, and I personally think I did myself proud thinking on my feet at this interview. This rejection has just spurred my determination to give it my all for these next two months. I'm exciting for the types of people I'll met, the offices I'll be seeing, and the places I'll be travelling to. And no, this isn't sleep deprivation talking. =D

This is an entry about jobs primarily because tomorrow's the Commerce Career Day. Was it a year ago that I was blogging about attending CCD as a third year? As I put off doing prep work for tomorrow... here's what usually occurs at a career fair.

So the world of internships and jobs may seem like a hazy unknown to most people, especially considering most of you are trying to decide what college to attend. When you arrive on Grounds though, you immediately think of, "alright, I'm here. What's next?" The big bad scary real world, or graduate school for the lucky few. One thing that you'll need to learn how to do (and something that I feel our comm school does a great job of) is learn how to work a career fair and network with professionals.

What are the most important things you need to have when talking to employers? A 30 second elevator speech and some darned good questions.

A 30 second elevator speech is a quick, introductory speech that catches people's attentions. What if you met the single most influential person in your life in the elevator. What would you say? How would you act? Do you smile and try to crack a joke? Or do you act somber and mature? As I've mentioned a few times in other posts, your self introduction should really reflect your personality. If you're normally a funny person, definitely go for humor. Just try not to be what you're not. It's painfully obvious and makes for stilted, awkward conversations. You definitely don't want to be remembered for that.

As for questions, it's really a way to differentiate yourself from other people. Think about it, employers (and admissions officers), meet hundreds, if not thousands of people, over the course of a recruiting season. You want them to remember you and pull for you when your resume (or application) comes up in the pool. You could try to stick out through that killer joke, or that scintillating conversation on the future of the Euro. I like to think of unusual questions. Most people tend to ask the same or vague questions. You definitely make a big impression if your questions are atypical (in a good way!).

Seniors are probably hardcore doing applications right now, good luck! Drop me a comment if you have a question.

current location: halifax

Rather, that’s where I had been all week – just got back into C’ville, pretty excited about the rest of the week.

Tonight I’ll be headed to Newcomb theater for a showing of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. It’s one of the programs put on by UPC during the summer for the benefit of those still in town. UPC stands for University Programs Council, and is in charge of – yep, you guessed it, the University’s programs. During the summer they often have random events like these. I remember several Facebook invites for some study breaks (for those taking classes during the summer and were studying for exams), cook outs, and free Bodo’s on the Lawn. One quibble I have with UPC is that most of their events take place during the day. We-ell, not everyone staying in C’ville is taking classes, how are the people interning/doing research supposed to come out to these events, eh? (Anyone from UPC reading this, have more events when people get off work!)

But otherwise, life is all gravy. I’m learning a lot on my job, and it’s really given me a different perspective on life outside of college. I’ve gotten a much better understanding of what to expect, and what my life will be like as an auditor in the last month than I could have in an entire year of industry research. Several of my friends are in town this weekend, which means lots of late night talking and catching up. I’m going to try to get three other friends out this weekend for some doubles tennis – but everyone’s schedule is so ridiculously over the place that it’s going to be hard.

In other news, I heard that swine flu is now in northern Virginia. Be careful everyone, stay healthy!

career day.

So the big thing that happened over my weekend was the Commerce Career Day! These are quite important as they're well, where you get a job and meet employers. This year we had it in the John Paul Jones Arena, a change that I welcomed because there was just so much more space. In previous years we had it in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom with some spillage into the South Meeting Room. The small area quickly got stifling hot, and people kept bumping into each other in the walkways.

Being our basketball arena, JPJ was very spacious and had four aisles of employers. In the three hours I was there, I managed to visit 10 employers and not spend too much time in line. I also came away with quite an amount of free stuff, ie pens, cups, flash drives, bags, wireless mouse, highlighters etc., so that was a nice perk as well. A career fair is basically a time when lots of employers come, set up booths and have a continuous meet and greet where you can ask tons of questions, drop off your resume, and hopefully make a good enough impression on the employer to be called back for an interview.

With career fairs, on of the most important things is to have a nice spiel about yourself and be able to talk intelligently with the employers. You don't want to spend half an hour waiting in line, only to go up and say "Uh.. hi yeah so.. I'm... Matt. What's your company about?" ...reallll bad impression to make. I was comparing notes with some friends afterwards and they were laughing about how some first years had come (which is fine by the way) and basically walked around, grabbing free stuff and asking the most inane questions (um, not as fine. Definitely not.)

I'd been going to career fairs as a first year (haha yes, I was probably one of those clueless people that upperclassmen laughed about), so I was more or less ready for this one. I did my homework on companies I wanted to visit, printed out a list so I wouldn't forget, and had around 25 copies of my resume printed on nice cardstock. Although standing around and talking for three hours doesn't sound to hard, it was still reallllyyy tiring. I would continue rambling but I must go study for an accounting midterm tomorrow and assignment due on Tuesday. Wish me luck!