MarkJC

Hey folks,

I'm a junior Mechanical Engineer, and we have a career fair coming up soon that employers will be attending (a lot smaller number than there were last year I might add.)

I will be distributing resumes and talking to recruiters there. I'm having a difficult time deciding which companies I should aim for, though. Internship in a company would give me a foot in the door for future employment there. But right now i'm not in a position to find out what exactly my role would be at a given company, so i'm just trying to narrow down the list of companies I should aim for.

A good starting point I think would be to look into companies and industries that offer the top starting pay, benefits, and opportunities for career advancement. My problem is, how can I find out these figures? I doubt most companies provide them, so I would have to look at some other metric.

I've heard that generally larger companies tend to offer more generous salaries and benefits, which makes sense. I need a metric that can rank likely companies based upon this. The metric i'm inclined to use is placement on the Fortune 1000 list, which would give me a list of the top 10-20 companies that I should appeal to at our career fair based upon revenues. I'm sure there is a better way to rank companies than this, but I can't think of one. Can you recommend a better metric I could look at, or perhaps some other way that I can find information about company-specific salaries/benefits?

BigMike3541

lol, thats a lot of information but its missing what you are actually interested in doing

ken285

At this point in your career, you shouldn't be narrowing down anything. In this economy, they pick you; you don't pick them. Apply to any company that you might remotely like working for.

Now if you already had offers, it would be a different situation.

MarkJC

You're right basically. I went to the career fair and few employers were interested in hiring. Most were there just to make their presence known. I know that I can apply online for internships, but I was hoping to focus in on a few of the best employers in order to speak with them at the fair, to make a good impression, and to provide my resume in the hopes that it will give me an advantage as far as summer internships (and future employment.)

For the fair in the Spring it would be useful if I knew some better ways to focus my efforts on only the 'best' companies as far as salary, benefits, career advancement goes when looking for an internship. At the moment i'm assuming that I should either aim for the largest companies, focus on specific higher paying industries, or attempt to get an internship with the federal government (which is ridiculously competitive from what i've heard.)

idlaunva

What is the point in focusing?
Apply to anything you wont absolutely hate doing (if you are Mechanical, this might be companies like Lockheed/Northrop and also maybe Boeing GE Exxon etc)

If you only get one of those, then at least you will have something for the summer. This was my main problem last year; I tried specializing to only a few companies/industry I liked. Big mistake; you don't lose anything by applying.

Packers1

Quit worrying so much about salary! What is the long term outlook for a particular company? Are they in an industry that you think you would enjoy? Are they located in a place you want to live? Is the size something that you want (often you move up faster in small companies).
I would look at salary about last in my criteria for an internship.

As an interviewer; if you start asking about pay levels it is a huge turnoff; I want you to be interested in the job!

DontPanic1

I remember when my D went to career fairs, she complained that the 'best' (popular) companies had long lines of students waiting to talk to them, and the first few in line managed to monopolize most of the time, so those lines didn't move. So in that respect I can see the desire to 'focus'. But that being said, I really agree with the other posters, exp the 'huge turnoff' thing; your criteria is all wrong.

Also, don't underestimate the company web sites. My D may not have ever made it to the front of their booth, but she still got an internship at the company of her choice; she simply researched and applied via the company websites, all from the comfort of her room.

msl2008

When you go in the spring, go to every booth there is and hand them your resume. I don't know your stats but in this economy, you as a job seeker have very little leverage and should be pretty happy if you get an offer. Do everything you can to secure an internship whether it's applying to company websites or writing to companies offering free help. Right now the important thing is to get experience so that when you graduate you can try to differentiate yourself from other recent grads who haven't done anything.