This semester, I went to The National Society of Black Engineers 45th Annual Convention in Detroit. Although it is not a Communications event and is not related to my major, I was able to network and get some helpful information about applying to jobs and building my portfolio.
I was there for 2 days, March 28th to the 29th. The first event I went to was the opening, which started with a prayer from the chief of police. Then the Mayor of Detroit spoke and welcomed us to the city. The theme for this year’s conference was “Explore. Engineer. Elevate.” The Mayor worked into his speech and encouraged all those amongst us to continue to look for innovative ways to help our communities now and when we graduate. Even though it did not specifically relate to me, I found his words of wisdom useful as a journalism and communications major to be a voice for the people in anyway I can.
On the Friday, there was a career fair which included taking resumes as well as networking and collecting business cards. I was able to connect with people from Dell and Google because I actually had mutual friends who worked there. I did not get to give anyone my resume since I could not be promised it will reach the right hands. But I did get LinkedIn referrals and business cards so that worked out okay.
The next day, Saturday was for interviews for prospective candidates from Friday’s networking. I was able to get a feel of how in person interviews for jobs are by asking my friends questions on how their interviews went. For the most part they are pretty straightforward and one friend told me that it is important for me to be able to sell my own personal brand; that is, make myself the kind of person deserving of this position through my personality and experiences. It was a very eventful and useful convention; I am glad I got to get that experience!
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