Attend two or more virtual career events and engage with four employers at each. Log every interaction and follow up. Counts as an elective.
Virtual Career Event Engagement
The room is open from wherever you are. Turning up is not the hard part.
What you walk away with
A Follow-Up Trail, Not an Attendance Record
Sitting in a virtual booth for forty minutes leaves no trace. What counts here is the log and what you did with it – who you spoke to, what they actually said, and the note you sent afterwards. Two events done this way are worth more than a semester of tabs left open in the background.
No cost and no commute. On credit: this is an elective and an optional experience. Virtual events count toward Optional Elevate Experience credit; they do not override or replace the major Elevate requirements for each year of the program, which still have to be completed in their own right. Confirm with your Elevate Success Coach which requirement a given event counts toward before you register. On the practical side: test camera and audio beforehand, keep your resume open as a PDF so you can drop it into a chat, use a plain background, and set your display name to the name on your resume. Galvin Library has bookable rooms if home is not quiet. Check which requirement an event counts toward
1ABOUTWhat This Is and What It Counts For▾
Two or more virtual career events across a semester – employer info sessions, online career fairs, industry panels, hiring events – with at least four employer interactions at each through chat, video or live Q and A. You keep a log of every interaction, follow up afterwards, and write 300 words on what the conversations told you about the industry.
It is the lowest-barrier networking experience in the catalog: no commute, no campus parking, evening sessions available, and a library or a kitchen table works as well as anywhere. That makes it a real option for commuter students, students working shifts, and anyone whose schedule has never lined up with a campus career fair. It is an elective, and it does not replace the major Elevate requirement for your year – see the note above.
Badges Earned
Credentials
Who This Suits
Right For You If
Commuter students and students working shifts. Anyone whose schedule has never matched a campus career fair, and anyone who finds a crowded room harder than a chat window.
College Alignment
Where This Fits
Illinois Tech is organizing its programs into three interdisciplinary colleges. Illinois Tech Futures
Career Fair Prep Squad prepares you for the in-person campus fair and its logistics. Informational Interviews are one-to-one conversations you arrange yourself, one person at a time. This is employer-hosted, many-at-once, and remote – the volume is higher and the depth is lower, so the follow-up is what rescues it from being forgettable.
2THE WORKFind Them, Prepare, Ask, Follow Up▾
The first move is the one students skip. Most never find the events at all because they only look in one place.
Start with the Elevate events calendar and filter to Virtual Sessions. Then Handshake, where employers post their own online sessions – ask your Elevate Success Coach for the current link rather than guessing the address. On LinkedIn, type a company or a topic into the search box and switch the results to Events, and follow your target employers so their Events tab shows up. On Eventbrite, filter to Online and search the industry rather than the job title.
Feeds: The events
Names, what they build, one recent piece of news. Four is the requirement, so choose them in advance rather than clicking whoever is least busy. Arriving with a question about something specific is what separates you from the queue of people asking what the company does.
Feeds: The employers
Use the chat, the video room, the live Q and A – whatever the platform gives you. Log it the same day: who you spoke to, what they said, and what happens next. Memory will not survive four employers across two events, and the log is a submitted requirement.
Feeds: The log
A short thank-you referencing the specific thing you discussed, plus a connection request where it makes sense. This is the entire difference between an event you attended and a person who now knows your name.
Feeds: The follow-up
3SKILLS YOU BUILDWhat the Log and the Follow-Ups Prove▾
Named in the language employers and career readiness frameworks use, so you can put these words on a resume and defend them.
Transfer to any role, in any country. They do not expire when a tool does.
The concrete methods you will have used, by name.
4YOUR ROUTEHow to Complete▾
Four steps. Step one is the one students skip, and it is the one that decides whether the rest produces anything usable.
5KEEP GOINGResources▾
Everything below is free to Illinois Tech students.
