Recruiters arrive in droves to be impressed by students

Career fair recently rolled into town and captured more than just student interest.

The recruiters, who attended this year's fair, held on September 13 and 14, 2005 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum, were all eyes and ears on Tech students and their innumerous achievements and accolades.

"About the people that I'm interviewing here, I'm finding some real good talent. I'm pretty impressed with some of the resumes, and [am hoping] that the folks that are in the company who are actually hiring will be able to interview them," said Javed Siddiqi, a senior software engineer at Lexmark.

Most recruiters seemed to be in line with that sentiment.

"Some of these students are so well qualified [that] they amaze me. Some of the experiences they've had have been just outstanding," said Claire Boland, Human Resources Lead at Monsanto.

"[Tech] has great students and I come here very year to take students. I hire mostly electrical engineers but I also hire for the other engineering organizations. We've had good experiences here," said Dr. John H. Day, Chief of the Electrical Engineering Division at NASA.

Some recruiters seem to be filling more positions than they anticipated.

"It's been very interesting as we've had some very good students," aid Joanne Berman, the Human Resources Manager for JDSU, a company providing systems and services in the fiber optic and telecommunications field.

"The funny thing is that we may found a few people for our European sites and we have some very good multicultural [applicants]. We've got an office in France that I may actually send some resumes to," Berman said.

"This is my first time recruiting at a career fair at Georgia Tech. I am so impressed with the quality of the students that I'm seeing, especially the underclassmen that are looking for internships," said Kimeth Williams, the director of Recruitment and Career Development at L'oreal.

"I thought I would wait and come and recruit interns in the spring but I've seeing so many great students that I plan on trying to get a schedule for October to recruit for internships," Williams said.

There were lighter moments to the serious, job-focused atmosphere.

"We get a lot of people who are interested in financial analyst positions and [when] they find out we're more of a sales, relational company, conversation quickly turns and they run away," said Dallas Nevins, a campus recruiter from Northwestern Mutual Financial Network.

"A lot of people kept losing their name tags and it wouldn't stick well to fabric but it would stick to other things," said Mark Saxon a Research Associate at Battelle.

"So for one guy, it fell off and hit one of our [promotional] buttons and he was trying to peel it off while he was trying to talk to me."

"You could tell he needed to focus on one thing or another," Saxon said.

"The worst was when a guy came up to me and he just started talking and didn't stop for a couple of minutes about what he's done and what he wants to do. It would [be ok] if it was an interview, but he came on awfully strong. So maybe some people are over zealous," he said.

The recruiters were also surprised by the vast student turnout.

"I was amazed at the number of students that were here especially in two days. The companies are here one day and half the other," Boland said.

"There are so many people looking for students, which is really kind of neat. I haven't seen so many blue suits in a long time."

"There's been a lot more activity than spring and foot traffic here. We've gotten a lot more qualified leads," said Mary Stuart Iverson, a campus Recruiter at Northwestern Mutual Financial Network.

"[The students] were too well dressed. Come on, we're here in hats and shorts. They [need to] relax a little more!" said Kiran Achyutuni, a Manager at Amazon.

The work put in by staff to make this event a success was well received.

"There's a lot better food [this year]," Nevins said.

"I really love working with Career Services here and the committee did a fantastic job," Williams said.

They were very accommodating, they looked out for all of our needs and so I'm very happy."

"The staff has been phenomenal," Berman said.

Overall recruiters found much here at Tech to keep coming back year after year.

"I have two [Tech] students working for me and my experience with them has been so wonderful that I've been an advocate of hiring more [Tech] students because they bring in a lot of fresh ideas and talent to the actual business," said Siddiqi.

"We've had [a] good experience here. It was fun talking to the students here and trying to inspire the next generation of explorers," Day said.