OPINION

Remembering Anthony
Shadid.
Pg. 2

CAMPUS

Illinois Tech contributes to
Farnworth exhibit.
Pg. 3

SPORTS

Morgan Curran is this
week’s Athlete Spotlight!

Student newspaper of Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928

Jobless, hopeless, but searching TechNews

By Daniel Kelly
TECHNEWS WRITER

With the Career Fair just around
the corner, students are scrambling to perfect
their resumes to ensure that they can secure
the positions they are applying fort As a meme
ber of the Career Management Center Student
Advisory Board, I thought it would be best to
share some of the suggestions that the Career
Management Center has shared with me to im7
prove your chances as much as possible at the
Career Fair this upcoming Thursday Unfortu7
nately, there is no single format of the resume
that will guarantee your acceptance to every
single job, but I will share some of the best sug7
gestions that have been gathered through years
of experience and research

Objective: While it has been debated
back and forth for years about the relevance of
the Objective in the resume, it has once again
emerged as a predominant factor in whether
or not you will get that job that you are apply,
ing fort The Objective should be included at
the top of your resume and state your inteni
tions behind submitting it It is imperative that
you include within your Objective the specific
job that you are applying for as well as the spe7
cific company where you are hoping to work
BEGINNER’S WARNING: If you distribute
the ‘standard’ resume to every company, they
will simply glaze over it without giving you a
second chance It is essential to personalize
your resumes to the company to improve your
chances at success

“I am applying for a position within
XYZ Company as an ABC Upon acquisition
of ABC position, I will be able to demonstrate
my skills in 123"

After the Objective comes the tricky
part

Unfortunately, each company that
will be at the Career Fair will be looking for
different prerequisites that you, the candidate,
have fulfilled While Graduate Schools will
look mostly at your grade point average and
the quality of your academic work, companies
will mainly focus on your campus involvement
and your interpersonal skills as your difi’ereni

tiating factors When a Bachelor’s Degree was
once considered that differentiating factor,
companies are more so interested in your past
work experience and experience that you can
bring to the company through various student
organizations Thankfully, the list of experi7
ences that these companies are looking for can
be found on their websites listed under those
job openings on their ‘career’ pages

Whether it is for more technically
based positions or more customer service orii
ented positions, companies are looking for the
most relevant information first That most rel,
evant information is your list of skills If you
are trained in PHP, MatELab, AutoCAD, SPS,
or team leadership, this is your time to include
that information and give brief details of how
you learned that skill as well as positive results
that you have achieved through holding this
skill Include these in a bullet point form that
is concise and highlights the most important
features that you are hoping to portray

Following your list of skills, it is
most important to include your past work ex,
perience It is of course not relevant to include
a list of everything that you have ever done,
so you want to limit this section to your three
most relevant job experiences As students, we
may not always have the luxury to include past
job experience so it is also relevant to include
work experience in different student organiza7
tions or different roles that you have filled in
various groups throughout your academic ca,
reerl

Based on the position that you are
applying for, your academic experience will
either precede your work experience or fol,
low it Detailed within your academic experi7
ence, you want to highlight the various degrees
that you may have acquired and the relevant
courses you have taken You will want to place
emphasis on the experiences that you have
gained through your classes and the relevant
skills that you have acquired It does not mat,
ter if you are a Freshman applying for your first
internship or a Senior hoping to obtain a pee
sition as a full time employee, companies are
looking for a few specific reasons to hire you
above the rest of the applicants

The final topic you want to include

in your resume is your list of references If you
are applying for a job where you have connec7
tions or know people within the industry who
can vouch for your expertise, it would be benei
ficial to list two or three references However, if
you are venturing into a new field where your
references may not be as widely known or rec,
ognized, it would be a waste of valuable space
to include them BEGINNER’S WARNING:
The worst thing you can do on an application
is list your references as “will be available on
request’l You want your resume to be holistic
view of who you are as an applicant and you
want to limit the amount of work done by the
company

While it may be diflicult to decide
what to include within your resume and what
to exclude, companies have made it easier on
the applicant by detailing the skills they are
looking for within their job description on
their website By analyzing the keywords that
are highlighted within these positions and
including them within your resume, you will
greatly increase your chances of standing out
within the piles of applications Modern com,
panies are processing the majority of applica7
tions received through an automatic re’sume’
reviewing software which will give you a grade
bases on the amount of keywords that you in,
clude within your resume

There is no standard format for rel
sume’s for the various organizations and com,
panies that will be attending the Career Fain
They are all looking for different sorts of in,
formation and in different layouts, but luckily
all that information can be found on that come
pany’s website We at the Career Management
Center strongly encourage all of you to either
research proper re’sume’ formatting within
your industry or visit the Career Management
Center within the next several days to perfect
your resume The Career Management Center,
which is located in the Northeast corner of the
HUB, will be holding re’sume’ critiques from
9am until 9pm Monday through Wednesday
of this week to help improve your chances of
finding the perfect job

I wish you the best of luck this up,
coming week and for whatever the future may
hold

 

CMC hosts largest career fair ever

By Gokul Butail
SGA VP OF STUDENT LIFE

The career fair is one of the most
efficient and successful ways of securing an
internship or a job for college students and
graduates In contrast to the conventional way
of applying for a position, career fair provides
applicants an opportunity to apply for multiple
positions in different companies, and meet in,
terviewers who either make hiring decisions
themselves directly or refer them for further
consideration, all under one roof

The Career Management Center
(CMC) at IIT has been acting as the liaison be,
tween the highly diverse talent pool of students
and aluan and employers who benefit from
their expertise Every semester CMC organizes
a career fair for IIT students and alumni to
provide them with an ocean of opportunities
and career choices This semester’s career fair is
going to be the largest IIT has ever hosted in its

history, with over 200 companies offering over
3000 jobs and internships It will take place in
Hermann Hall on February 23 from 12:00 pm
until 4:00 pm

The author of this article met
Shirlean Williams, Director of Employer Ree
lations at IIT and cleared some of the doubts
which students usually have

1) One of the major concerns that
students have before coming to a job fair is
their academic performance We have seen
students saying, “Ohl I have a low GPAI Who
is going to hire me?"

A good GPA might give you an edge,
but companies are looking much beyond that
A company looks at your overall profile, which
includes your projects, experience, leadership
skills, extracurricular activities and, of course,
your personality

2) IIT is over 40% international stu7
dents One is of the notion that international
students often don’t have access to many op,

portunities for them What would you say
about that?

Yes, we often hear that comment,
but it is not true CMC has been working to,
wards giving opportunities to all IIT students,
domestic or international About half of the
companies that are coming to the career fair
this time hire international students and would
be ready to sponsor their visa

3) Graduating students who have
not done an internship or an OPT (Optional
Practical Training) during their undergraduate
or graduate program sometimes feel discouri
agedt What do you have to say to them?

IIT has great academics, therefore
they need not worry The IPRO’s in our under,
graduate curriculum make our students stand
apart from the students at other universities
IPRO’s expose the students to real world prob,
lems and their solutions S0, students without
an internship experience still have a great
(continued onpage 3)

TUESDAY

February 21,2012
Volume 172 I Issue 5

technewsiit.com

Opi ion 2
Campus 3
AErE 5

The Slipstick 6
Sports 2

 

turns a page

Tell us what you want in
your student newspaper!

By Ryan Kamphuis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Your voice Your newspapert Your
TechNews

Since 1928, TechNews has beenproviding
you upitoidate news on campus happenings,
current events, the local art scene, and much
more As we enter the second decade of the
21st century, both this university and this
newspaper are making big steps to embrace
the new direction that journalism is taking
and make it easier than ever to keep yourself
informed

I’m proud to announce that with the
hiring of our new IT Manager, Pranava Teja
Surukuchi, our website, TechNewsIITcom, is
now being updated weekly The website will
have all of our articles, and provides all the
info you need to submit content to TechNews,
dis cuss articles with your peers, and learn more
about IIT

In addition to our updated website,
TechNews is preparing to embrace our
increasingly mobile world We are currently in
the process of developing mobile applications
for the iOS and Android platforms that will
allow you to read articles and download entire
issues of TechNews to your smartphone or
tablet We are still in the formative stages of
developing these apps, and any suggestions on
what features these apps should have would be
greatly appreciated

The changes that TechNews are not
just related to the internet and technology
The general philosophy of TechNews is also
changing It is the opinion of TechNews that
a strong campus newspaper is essential to
creating a strong campus community

To do this, we are working to make
TechNews more open and a student forum
We want to make it easier for individuals and
organizations to contribute to TechNews,
and encourage people to use TechNews as a
platform to inform the IIT community on the
progress and actions of their organizations

TechNews shouldn’t be a stuffy newspaper
where only the elite and trained can contribute
TechNews should be a dynamic news source
where everyone can contribute and learn about
their community

In the coming weeks and months, expect
to see TechNews more often as we work to
make these changes happent We’re working
on a brand new marketing campaign that
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contribute to and be a part of TechNews

Our mobile apps will be coming out soon,
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TechNews is your newspaper, and we
would love to hear what you want to see from
your newspaper If you have any suggestions
about how to improve TechNews, comments
on our vision for the future, or you would like
to contribute to all this, please email me at
editor@technewsiittcomt I’d love to hear what
you have to say, and I’d love to work with you
to make this newspaper better than everl