Engineering students attended the second fall 2019 Engineering Career Fair on Tuesday for another chance at landing an internship, co-op or job offer.

The second career fair was larger than the first with about 378 expected employers, according to Mayra Ramirez, program assistant for Engineering Career Services.

Each company had a table set up with information about their company and representatives to talk with students and collect their resumes. Iowa State students attend the career fair with the goal of successfully networking to lead them to employment.

Emily Dearden, junior in biological systems engineering, has attended multiple career fairs in her time at Iowa State. She said she attended this career fair to speak with food companies such as Swans Food Company, as her studies have a food emphasis.

“This [second career fair] is a lot bigger scale,” Dearden said. “It’s like so many more companies are here, it’s just a lot more to do, go around and talk to everyone.”

Dearden said she prepares a lot more for the career fairs now and can have smoother conversations with the companies.

“I research the companies before I go up to them and overview all the stuff I found out about them,” Dearden said. “I practice my elevator speech over and over again so then when I go up to them it just comes out really easy.”

Samantha Larson, senior in industrial engineering, obtained an internship at Graco Inc. in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because of Iowa State’s engineering career fairs. Larson also had another internship in her hometown and is now looking for a full-time position for after graduation.

“I’m looking for full-time [jobs] so I definitely prepared a lot more on who I wanted to talk to and some background on those companies,” Larson said. “Other than that it’s a lot easier talking to them as a senior I feel like ‘cause I have two internships under my belt, so I know a little bit more about what I’m talking about.”

A piece of advice Larson offers to students attending career fairs is to look at CyHire, know who they want to talk with and make a good first impression.

“I think over the years I started out as very stressed when I got here and didn’t really know who to talk to,” Larson said. “And now I’ve kind of gone through CyHire a little before, found companies that I want to talk to and then figured out where they were located so I wasn’t as stressed about where I was going.”

A previous career fair helped Forrest Martinson, an Iowa State graduate in civil engineering, find a job in Alaska, where he worked right after he graduated. He said he is now hoping to secure a full-time job position near Ames.

“Apply for internships even though you think that you might not get them, ‘cause having an internship early on will help you get future jobs,” Martinson said.

The Spring 2020 Engineering Career Fair is scheduled for noon to 5 p.m. on Feb. 11, 2020, in the Hilton Coliseum and Scheman Building.