Since writing the original Job Search Guide in the fall of 2006, I began recruiting in 2007 for the company I hired in with.  I must say, it has been an extremely rewarding and fun experience to be on the other side of the table of college students.  However, what good would it be if I didn’t leverage what I’ve learned to help give you a leg up to help you in how to find a job, college internship or career?

For starters, let me just say that all of the original guide still is 100% relevant and applies.  My observations and experiences I share in here are merely meant to reinforce and reflect, not contradict!  Further, I very well may ramble.  Some of you are “Data people,” just like me and really enjoy hearing or reading about this kind of stuff just to get as much information as possible.  With that in mind, feel free to scan through this if you are getting bored.  I promise to bold anything that is important!

So, let’s get to it.  My company first breaks recruiting teams down by university, and then further, by major.  We have a U of M Mechanical Engineering team and a U of M Chemical Engineering team, etc.  Then, HR tells us specifically how many candidates they want us to invite back for an on-site second round interview, and how many internships we can offer.  Last year, the numbers were 5 on-site second round interview invites, and 1 intern (for U of M Mechanical Engineers alone, the Chemical Engineer’s had their own allotment).

From there, we four U of M Mechanical recruiters could take any approach we wanted in order to fill the HR recruiting numbers.  At the career fair, we chose to split up into a couple of different roles.  Here’s where this gets interesting for you.  We had two “door men”, and two interview approval guys, one for internships, and one for full time positions.  The door men would screen candidates to see if they were a viable candidate and if they met our company’s requirements (GPA, Citizenship, etc).  If the candidate passed this initial screening, they were then passed along to the full time or intern recruiter for a more in-depth conversation about experiences, interests, etc.  Based on that conversation, we would then make decisions about who to offer interviews to.

You can see that given the way we organized ourselves, getting past the bouncer is an important step.  The best way to do this is to have a polished resume and a GPA over 3.0 (Though due to a high level of recruiting competition, we recently lowered our minimum to 2.7). 

I will also say that citizenship is a big deal.  With the global world we live in now, there are a ton of international students looking to stay within the US.  For these candidates to stay, apparently a ton of paperwork has to be done to apply for a very limited pool of available visas (I’ve been told that there are a total of 60,000 granted every year, which “sell out” within a matter of minutes).  You can see based on this, corporations are not very willing to use these limited spaces unless the candidate has a unique and valuable skill-set (think Ph.D.).  So, if you are an international student and a company tells you that they cannot consider you because you are not a US citizen, please don’t feel angry or upset at the company.  Instead, ask if they have opportunities in other parts of the world that would leverage your heritage.  This way, you can utilize your native language and cultural skills, while at the same time working for a good company.  With time, you can hopefully move back to the US if that’s what your long-term goal is.

Getting past the bouncer is usually pretty easy if you look presentable, meet the GPA and Citizenship requirements, and then have a good looking resume.  Often times a good conversation would get you past with ease.

Candidates would then be passed off to our full time or intern recruiters.  Their role in all of this was to actually perform a “mini-interview” on the spot to probe the candidate’s experiences and resume to determine if we wanted to offer a first round interview to them.  Simple enough.

My company looks for three things:  leadership, academics, and extracurricular activities.  As a general guideline, if we saw a candidate who was strong one of these three components, we were attracted to that candidate, but they would need some additional consideration (i.e. a “maybe”).  Two strengths of them from one candidate generally meant the candidate was a “definitely.”  Now, in all of this, we would look for the intangibles – communication, presence, etc.  This is where the “maybes” get make-up points to get put into the definitely column.  If you think you are a “maybe” based on your work/leadership experience alone, work on perfecting your communication skills to boost your overall appeal to perspective employers.

At the end of the day, we would review the resumes to fill a full day of on-campus interviews (9-10).  That being the case, there were always a number of definite candidates, and a few maybes.  The maybes that made a lasting impression got the nod.  The ones that didn’t… didn’t.

For interviews, our company makes a big deal about standardizing the format, questions, etc so that each candidate has a level playing field.  And yep, you guessed right, we use behavioral based questions too!  The interviews went exactly like you would expect them to.  However, there are a few nuggets I took away from them.  I noticed that the top candidates had excellent communication skills during the interviews – some of them didn’t necessarily have better examples or experience, they were just able to describe and articulate much better than the other candidates.

While our company candidate response “scoring” is standardized as well, you can see that two people telling the same story could very easily get different scores based on what details they emphasized, and what they left out.  It’s all a matter of knowing what the recruiter is looking for.  So let me tell you:  Our interview response scoring is based on the level of success and impact you had in your project or example.  A low score would be equivalent to doing something below regular expectations, having little impact inside or outside of the organization (obviously).  A middle score would be meeting the expected results, potentially impacting the organization in a positive manner (most responses fit here).  A superior score would be having results that far exceeded expectations, with a significant impact inside and even outside of the organization.

We would score each candidate after their interview, after they left the room.  With two recruiters doing the interviewing, we would discuss and agree on scores for the candidate.  At the end of the day, we tallied all of the points, and came out with a candidate ranking list based on the scores.

You can see that we applied a very scientific approach towards ranking candidates from interviews, which might give you the idea that when it comes down to it, the “soft stuff” (appearance, communication, etc) doesn’t matter, and experience is what counts.  However, I will also tell you that the candidates that ranked at the top were better groomed, better dressed, and communicated significantly better than the candidates that were at the bottom.  This leads me to believe that they are in fact related.  If you dress yourself, practice communication, and are prepared, I believe this makes a direct impact on every response score you get, regardless of what your actual example is.

We had one candidate come in wearing jeans and a polo shirt.  Immediately, we knew that he was not seriously considering our company.  Not surprisingly, he ranked somewhere in the bottom 3.  Don’t be That Guy.

Our top candidates were dressed sharply, were well prepared, and we could see that they were genuinely interested in our company.  This is why scouting your companies gives you an edge – if you have scouted a company, and have found something that truly excites and interests you, this will show during an interview.  Recruiters will definitely pick up on that, giving you yet another advantage!

After the interviews, we ranked our candidates, and made recommendations to HR about who to invite for on-site interviews, who to put into a “holding pattern,” and who to decline.  Our job from that point on was mostly to follow up with our recruits to make sure that they were being communicated with by HR, and that the second round interview met all of their expectations. 

I truly hope this article has been helpful in providing you an edge in your next job search. From here, feel free to explore the other articles on the website to get more in depth information, or purchase our complete Job Search Guide!

Happy (Job) Hunting!

Thanks again for your interest in College-Career-Builder.com


E-Mail: coachbob@college-career-builder.com