Each year, Iowa State University career fairs draw thousands of students seeking jobs and hundreds of companies recruiting new talent. This year, for companies looking to hire engineers, the only difference may be one of the settings—a new spot to conduct on-campus interviews.
Recently remodeled space for Engineering Career Services (ECS) in Marston Hall now has 10 meeting rooms available to employers for conducting interviews. Interviews can be scheduled any day of the work week (whether Fall or Spring semester) at any point from the career fair through 
finals week.
“On-campus interviews make it very convenient for busy college students to schedule interviews around their classes and eliminates the transportation issues that some students face,” said Brian Larson, director of ECS. “It also makes it possible for employers to meet with a significant number of job candidates in a single day, simplifies the scheduling of interviews, and eliminates the cost of reimbursing candidates for travel expenses.”
Employers can request use of the new space via Iowa State’s free CyHire career management system at cyhire.iastate.edu/employers. The employer establishes a schedule and links the interview sessions to one or more position descriptions. Students then apply for the positions.Once employers decide who to interview, those students automatically are invited to sign up for an interview time.
“Interviewing on campus is a great way to initially connect with the students,” said Terry Frederickson, human resources generalist at Lennox Industries, which interviews 120+ students on campus each year.
Sarah Erikson, recruiter/diversity coordinator at Emerson in Marshalltown, said Emerson annually interviews about 100 students on campus for its internship/co-op program. It hired 32 interns/co-ops from Iowa State in 2016. On-campus interviews are “convenient for all involved,” Erikson said. “It’s an excellent way to interview for a broad range of roles.”
Ryan Henderson, a mechanical engineering student who graduated in May 2016, interviewed with multiple companies on campus in his final year. One of those, 3M, eventually hired him as a manufacturing engineer. “For me, interviewing on campus was convenient,” Henderson said, adding that the process allows students to “interview for many jobs and increase their chances of finding the best” match with an employer.
A version of this article was published in the Summer 2016 edition of CIRAS News. To read more of that edition or others, please explore elsewhere on our website.