A “fabulous attendance” is how Dean of Natural Sciences Robert Calderbank described the turnout of students and company representatives at the Fall 2012 TechConnect.

The annual networking and career education event was co-sponsored by inDuke, the Department of Computer Science, the Pratt School of Engineering, and the Career Center. More than 400 eager attendees, from freshmen to seniors and from graduate research to graduate professional program students, flocked to the event on September 11. Designed specifically for students in Engineering and Computer Science, TechConnect has become the premier campus recruiting event for students interested in pursuing career opportunities at technological companies. The idea is to provide an informal networking environment for students to talk to various company representatives.

The evening started off with a panel discussion at six o’clock. The Schiciano auditorium was packed to capacity with students turned out smartly in full professional attire. The vibrant atmosphere buzzed with the students’ energy and enthusiasm, which were then unleashed - in the form of questions to the panel members - as soon as the discussion began.

There were the usual queries about internships, full-time opportunities, résumés, interviews and networking. There were also many less predictable questions, about highlighting course experience in a relevant manner on résumés, dealing with differences in interview style for internships and full-time positions, and even the right way to follow up with a prospective employer after a networking event. One student asked about applying for jobs in fields outside her major, while another wanted to know about the propriety of applying for multiple positions within the same company.

This year’s panelists were Sean Fogle - user interface developer from Belvedere Trading; David Igo - director of product development and manufacturing from Catalent; Dana Branham - senior design engineer from Caterpillar (Duke alum); Roy Williams - software engineer from Facebook (Duke alum); Wayne Jones - project manager from Traylor Bros. Inc.; Herve Buisson - vice-president of process engineering at Veolia. They had their hands full answering the myriad of questions thrown at them. Marisabel Guevera, a CS PhD student, moderated the panel, highlighting the student perspective during the discussion. Even when time was up the panelists offered to carry on answering questions at the networking session that followed.

In his opening remarks earlier Dean Calderbank had noted that Duke students had “an appetite for engaging with the world.” The students lived up to that characterization with their insightful questions, both at the panel discussion and during the later one-on-one conversations with company representatives.

Kat Leung from Google mentioned that the “Googlers” met a lot of “solid candidates for both internships and full-time positions in software engineering and associate product manager roles.” She noted, “All the students who approached us were well prepared with questions they wanted to ask and experiences they wanted to share to highlight their résumé. We are looking forward to next year's TechConnect!"

Shiva Rallapalli from Humana was also impressed with the quality of students. “We came across some very accomplished and motivated students at both the undergraduate and graduate level. We were especially impressed with a lot of the sophomores who stopped by,” he said. He added, “This was our first event at Duke, and we immediately decided to make Duke one of our strategic schools based on the experience we had here.”

As excited as they were about the networking event, the students also had very specific expectations of the TechConnect experience. Freshman Jonathan Moran, intending to double major in Computer Science and Economics, said that he “came to hear about résumés, interviews and internships.” He found the answers from the Facebook representative at the panel discussion to be particularly useful. Isabelle Bregna, a junior in Mechanical Engineering, said she came with the “hope of getting advice on gaining experience before actually being hired full-time.” She felt that although some of her questions could have been answered by advisors at the career center, the real-life work scenarios shared by the panelists gave her better insight.

Nikhil Saxena, a senior in Computer Science, commented on the deep selection of prospective employers at TechConnect when compared to the career fair, which takes place the next day. “Companies are targeting students…who [are] interested in the more technical aspects of the company. It really makes it easy to find and talk to the companies that you are interested in.”

Nikhil’s thoughts were echoed by Russell Holloway, Associate Dean of Corporate & Industry Relations at the Pratt School of Engineering and co-director of inDuke and TechConnect. He said that from the student’s perspective TechConnect can be considered as a “specialty boutique,” while the career fair is “more like a department store.” While each has its unique advantages, at the career fair, students have to navigate “a broader lineup of companies,” and employers have to “sift through more résumés to isolate a suitable candidate.” He added, “The companies that attend TechConnect know that they will see students with the desired technical background and majors. For them it becomes a process of finding the perfect candidate from a pool of great candidates.”

The participation of Duke alumni as company recruiters is a hallmark of TechConnect, and the organizers take pride in recruiting as many as possible for the event. “More than 85% of the company representatives at the event were Duke alumni,” says Kirsten Shaw, Assistant Director of Industry Relations at the Pratt School of Engineering and a co-director of the event. Shaw was pleased that TechConnect provided more opportunities for “networking and one-on-one interaction” to allow students to establish connections that tend to get lost in the bigger crowd at a regular career fair.

Talking about the feedback she had received from company representatives, Shaw added, “Both regular attendees and new companies were consistently impressed with the caliber of students, their presentation and preparedness with knowledge about the companies.” In fact several employers had informed her that “they had met students whom they were immediately referring for hire.” Based on the attendance statistics, Shaw confirmed that “the company and student participation had well exceeded past years.” A total of 57 companies registered for and attended the event, an increase of more than 30% over the previous year.

Richard Lucic, Associate Chair of the Department of Computer Science and co-director of inDuke and TechConnect was “very pleased and gratified by the success or our 2012 edition of TechConnect”. He further added that, “The energy and enthusiasm of the 57 companies and more than 400 students participating was pervasive.” Based on the comments he received from many of the participants he thinks “this was easily the best TechConnect ever!”

TechConnect wishes to thank the following companies for adding an element of fun to the evening by generously sponsoring door prizes at the panel discussion:

• Accenture sponsored the laptop bag and yoga mat won by John Lorenz
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch gave away the $100 Student Store gift card won by Shambhavi Vashishtha
• Belvedere Trading, Bronto Software, and Humana each provided $50 restaurant gift cards won by Ross Cahoon, Jack Li, and Ningrui Li
• Cisco donated two sets of noise canceling headphones won by Henry Farley and Letitia Hubbard
• Jane Street also sponsored two sets of headphones won by Hanyu Fu and Isaac Odim
• Google contributed the two $25 Google Play Cards won by Isabelle Brogna and Yinan Xie
• Microsoft gave away an xBox Kinect bundle won by James Risman
• Rosetta Stone sponsored a language subscription won by Tony Yan
• TechConnect gave away two T-shirts won by Anirush Gopal and Shalki Kumar

View the TechConnect 2012 web site