Hello Illinois Tech community! I hope everyone has enjoyed our first significant snow of the season and are getting out to build a snowman, have a snowball fight or two, and find a good hill for sledding.
Career Services is working hard to put on a successful career fair for all of you this week. We’ve reached out to 20,000+ employer contacts and have engaged the alumni community and other stakeholders of the institution to try to bring great companies to campus.
Even with these efforts, we are in an unusual time of political, social and economic perspectives as a larger national society right now. We have seen technology companies scale back hiring over the past couple years after increasing hiring during the pandemic. Disruptions such as increases in interest rates, changes to work/life habits after the COVID lockdowns, and the ‘AI Revolution’ have led these companies to rethink the structures of their organizations. The inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States in January has also effected the hiring strategy for many organizations and led them to take a ‘wait-and-see’ approach. Regardless of your political views, Donald Trump has promised to make big changes in a variety of spheres, including immigration and tariff policy, both of which affect many of the employers who regularly recruit from Illinois Tech.
With all that said, you will probably notice that our Spring 2025 fair (assuming this is not your first semester) is smaller than any of our previous fairs, especially on Day 1. We have heard employers echo many of the questions listed above; but, for those employers who are attending our career fair, we know they are serious about hiring from Illinois Tech and that they value the incredible impact that you can have on their organizations.
We will continue to engage employers after the fair and hopefully, as things become clearer over the next few weeks, they will choose to engage in direct recruiting on-campus. We will still encourage them to participate in our MTCC Bridge Recruiting Days and look to bring them to campus for information sessions and other events.
Regardless, we continue to be dedicated to your success and highly encourage you to attend a coaching session with one of our great professional and student coaching staff members to receive individualized services for a successful self-directed job or internship search. Sign up at https://iit.joinhandshake.com/edu/appointments.
We look forward to working with you and hope to see you at an event sometime this Spring!
Warm Regards,
BJ Engelhardt
Executive Director
Career Services
