Last week I attended the STEMM job and internship fair on campus where I had the chance to meet with various companies in order to get a full time job or internship for the summer. Now of course there would be a lot of students their trying to apply for the same positions thus we are given crowded rooms and lines to wait on. However, that wasn’t the main issue I had with the event. The real problems came during the short time I had to meet with each company’s representative to try and apply for the position.

I understand that each company had very little time to talk with every student. After all there were a lot of people ready with many questions. But while I waited on line at each table I noticed that several students were asking the same questions time and time again. They would ask questions like where is the company stationed, do they have multiple positions to apply for, what does this company actually do (which is something they should have already researched), and several other questions. Even the representatives were asking the same questions over and over again like when can you get started, what is your GPA, do you have any questions, and so much more. It was at that point I realized that the students and representatives were just following the same pattern/formula over and over again. The problem with this is that it makes all the students seem common place or standard. If everyone sounds the same, then the companies won’t give much thought to some people and thus everything seems monotonous. The only cure, from what I can tell, is to ask the questions they teach you to ask in seminars while adding in some unexpected questions that companies won’t see coming. I believe this method could make you stand out above the rest while also showing how trained and professional you have become.

Another problem I noticed with this kind of job fair is the availability of some positions. For example, I am trying to become an actuary as my career goal, which is a very difficult job to get into given the amount of math and statistics someone needs to study. Throughout the whole job fair, there was only one company that actually listed actuary as an employment opportunity. The rest were looking for accounting and finance, which are similar but not quite the same. This meant that there would be a lot of competition for that one position, and that I may have to reconsider what to apply for. Now the obvious solution would be to attend a conference that specifically focuses on that particular job, which I have done in the city during winter break. The problem then is that there would be a massive crowd of people from all over the country trying to apply for those positions. Some of which aren’t even students, but rather older people who already have their masters and Ph-Ds in this field. This kind of competition will require more than just uniqueness since this is on a much more professional level than the job fairs on campus. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a better solution than to just improve your studies as of this moment.

Overall, I’m not saying competition is bad or something to be feared. I just feel that competition is more complicated than other people have us believe, and thus requires a unique twist on how it is tackled. What are your thoughts?