On on-campus recruiting / NASA press conference / Hair styles / Career fairs coming /…

On on-campus recruiting

This week and maybe this month there is at least one company presenting itself in MIT. I was hopeful, that these sessions would help me in getting a job. It may not be so: I talked to one recruiter/representative from the Boston Consulting Group today. She said clearly, that they do come to campus to recruit young students, those graduating very soon and who do not have that much experience. She also said, that persons like me should just submit applications in their website. We all know, what happens to such applications: nothing, they seems to disappear to /dev/null. Anyway, by going to the presentations I will get to know the companies a bit better - and I always will get a free dinner!

NASA press conference

NASA is staging a press conference. They revealed the new Moon-Mars space architecture. I do not know much of these, but the result looks like a kind of mess: reuse of Apollo ideas and the Shuttle, which may be not very good - I am not sure that the set of requirements is not itself contradictory. Anyway, they (or Griffin, the boss of NASA) does not seems very enthusiastic. Not a good salesman. Let me write more after discussing with the real experts here in Aero/Astro-department. See e.g an article in NYT.

Hair styles

I saw a chinese girl, who has shaved some of her hair away from here forehead. She looked nice, but I am not sure why she had done it; maybe having too low hairline is not fashionable in some circles. Anyway, I have never seen such a haircut before.

Career fairs coming

From MIT job interview guidelines: "Clean well-groomed and professional looking. Remember, the choice to cut your hair is yours, but the choice to hire you is the interviewer's. Be sure beards and mustaches are neat and trimmed." I assume I should consider getting a crewcut. Otherwise I will be unemployed until I get bald. And note that " If it is a Fortune 500 company, obviously you should wear a traditional suit.. I wonder how many has tailored suits? And what if the company is 501st in the Fortune list? A normal suit is OK? In all, it seems that most jobs in USA as modeling jobs, not something else.
Some notes to do to prepare for the career fair on Wednesday. Bring resumes (maybe general and also specific ones) or send resumes later (but they have already all resumes on a CD!). Decide companies to talk to with. Remember that the company representatives are in MIT to meet us. 2 hours is enough time for visiting the fair. Dress appropriately (business casual). Ask non-trivial questions. Make eye-contact and shake hands. Get information, so that you can contact them later. Prepare and practice a script (name, program in MIT, when graduating). Know the company: what they do, what kind of positions they have; show interest in the company.
Top 10 characteristics, which companies are looking for: communication skills, work experience, motivation/initiative, teamwork skills, leadership abilities, GPA/academic credentials, technical skills, interpersonal skill, analytical skills, ethics.
After the fair. Send a note to interesting companies. Do not worry being too pushy. Sending a letter is OK.
Most companies come for entry level employees, but even still the fair is good place to build up some networks. (All interviews in the interviewtrack are for entry level workers).

System architecture homework done

It took us (Bill, Wilfried and I) 5 hours working time to do the first SA assignment. It was not even hard, and it was actually kind of fun and interesting. We have some 10 pages of text, a number of OPN-graphs, and some tables. Not bad at all. Lean studying rules still supreme.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs from July to September 2005".