These experiences typically are coordinated by a campus career center of some sort and usually the interviewees get selected by random draw, by the company interviewer based on resumes before hand, or some mixture of both. This is a typical method used by big companies or local companies of any size.

Similar to the On Campus Interview is the Job Fair Interview, which can target both veterans and less experienced job seekers. These are usually a little less formal and routinely don’t have any sort of pre-selection process. Queue up, hand the person your resume, and start selling yourself. These sorts of gatherings can be hosted by career centers, local recruiting agencies, or chapters of national engineering associations.

In either case, the situation is similar. The person you are talking to probably doesn’t have a specific job for you. Instead, they act as a pre-screener for the pool of jobs the company does have. Getting sent to one of these things is usually a perk for the interviewer since it involves free travel back to their alma mater or some place else desirable to them. As a result, well-rounded engineers with solid skills get selected for these sorts of assignments by companies that participate in them. The interviewer is typically looking for a general set of skills as opposed to ones oriented towards specific jobs. While you won’t be able to ask them questions about a specific job, you won’t have to answer them either. General questions about the company go both ways, though, so be sure to do your research as appropriate.

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2 - The On Campus or Job Fair Interview
• Part 3 - The Phone Screen Interview
• Part 4 - Technical Questions
• Part 5 - The Touchy-Feely Questions
• Part 6 - Logical Questions and Questions for you to ask
• Part 7 - Final Thoughts

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