Career fairs & recruiting

The two big fairs

The Fall Career Conference is a two-day September event in Ironclad Fieldhouse: day one is manufacturing, engineering technology, construction, and skilled trades; day two is technology, design, business, health, and human services. It is the main hiring event of the year — employers come to fill co-op, internship, and full-time roles that start within twelve months. The Spring Career Conference in February is smaller and weighted toward summer internships, May graduates who are still looking, and government, nonprofit, and education employers whose budgets open later.

Both are free to students. Registration opens in PorterCareers (Handshake-style) about three weeks ahead; the employer list, their open roles, and their booth numbers are posted there so you can plan a route.

On-campus and virtual recruiting

Between the fairs, employers run on-campus interview days — they post a role, screen the applicants who apply through PorterCareers, and interview a shortlist in the career center's interview suite. Getting into that room usually means you met them at a fair first. Info sessions, employer-in-residence office hours, site visits to nearby plants and studios, and virtual fairs for out-of-state employers run all semester and are listed on the same calendar.

Some programs — engineering, construction, packaging, nursing — have such steady demand that department-specific recruiting events run alongside the university-wide ones.

Working a fair so it works

Before: pick 6–8 employers from the list, read what they actually make and what roles are open, and tune your résumé to each cluster. Draft a 30-second opener — name, year, major, what you are looking for, one specific thing you can do. Upload the résumé to PorterCareers so a recruiter can find you after. The career center runs résumé reviews and mock fairs in the two weeks before each event, and the free professional clothing program (Founders Union, no appointment) will outfit you head to toe.

During: hit your top choice second, not first — warm up on one you care less about. Ask what a strong candidate for their co-op looks like, and ask how to follow up. Write one sentence about each conversation on the back of the recruiter's card before you talk to the next booth; by employer forty they blur.

After: email the people you spoke with within 48 hours, reference the specific conversation, attach the résumé, and apply to the posting in PorterCareers even if they said "just email me."

If fairs are not your format

A crowded gym is a bad environment for a lot of people, and recruiters know it. You can request a quiet-hour early-entry slot, book a one-on-one with a career counselor who will make warm introductions on your behalf, or skip the fair entirely and go through info sessions, LinkedIn outreach, alumni informational interviews, and direct applications with a counselor's help. The outcome that matters is an interview, and there is more than one road to it.