A year ago seems like yesterday as I begin remembering my job recruitment journey. At my alma mater, Indiana State University, the career fair is very local-heavy with companies and opportunities. The only jobs that were outside of the Wabash Valley were with Target as a part of their retail training program. I'd worked retail throughout my entire college career, so I knew that wasn't going to be in my best interest. Therefore, I was in a bit of a bind - how do I find more opportunities without blindly submitting my resume online?
Luckily, I remembered that there was a nationally recognized undergraduate business school less than an hour away from ISU - the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
I started researching when the career fairs took place, and found the sales and marketing fair to be my best bet. I called a good friend of mine who attended IU and asked if there were any prerequisites to get into the career fair. He mentioned I needed to have an IU student ID, which I obviously didn't have, but said I could use his - I'm in!
I drove down to Bloomington and was able to get in to the career fair without any issues. I walked in and was amazed at all of the tremendous companies and names: Procter & Gambel, Kimberly-Clark, Otis Elevator Company, News Corporation, among others. I stopped by all of these booths, but was somewhat displeased with their demeanor and bland answers to questions.
I decided to start going to a few smaller companies and my first stop was the Orr Fellowship. Talking for just a few minutes, I knew immediately that the Fellowship was a unique experience that would allow me to work in a small company (as I had interned in college) and could have an impact right away.
As they say, the rest is history. I applied to the Orr Fellowship, went through the interview process and was lucky enough to land with ExactTarget in Indianapolis.
The moral of my journey to IU is that when looking and applying for a job, get creative. Now more than ever it's imperative that graduating seniors stand out from the rest, and having the opportunity to tell recruiters that I had driven from ISU just to attend the career fair was a great talking point, not to mention it introduced me to the Orr Fellowship.
Luckily, I remembered that there was a nationally recognized undergraduate business school less than an hour away from ISU - the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
I started researching when the career fairs took place, and found the sales and marketing fair to be my best bet. I called a good friend of mine who attended IU and asked if there were any prerequisites to get into the career fair. He mentioned I needed to have an IU student ID, which I obviously didn't have, but said I could use his - I'm in!
I drove down to Bloomington and was able to get in to the career fair without any issues. I walked in and was amazed at all of the tremendous companies and names: Procter & Gambel, Kimberly-Clark, Otis Elevator Company, News Corporation, among others. I stopped by all of these booths, but was somewhat displeased with their demeanor and bland answers to questions.
I decided to start going to a few smaller companies and my first stop was the Orr Fellowship. Talking for just a few minutes, I knew immediately that the Fellowship was a unique experience that would allow me to work in a small company (as I had interned in college) and could have an impact right away.
As they say, the rest is history. I applied to the Orr Fellowship, went through the interview process and was lucky enough to land with ExactTarget in Indianapolis.
The moral of my journey to IU is that when looking and applying for a job, get creative. Now more than ever it's imperative that graduating seniors stand out from the rest, and having the opportunity to tell recruiters that I had driven from ISU just to attend the career fair was a great talking point, not to mention it introduced me to the Orr Fellowship.
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