Published: September 22, 2016 |

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Downturns in the energy and agricultural sectors of the economy caused a slight decrease in the overall number of companies seeking prospective interns and full-time employees at Tuesday’s South Dakota School of Mines & Technology Career Fair.

But overall, science and engineering interns and graduates still remain in high demand.

Even if companies are seeking fewer full-time employees, they still need interns to be ready for future growth, according to Darrell Sawyer, assistant vice president for student development at Mines.

“The internship pipeline is critical in terms of companies hiring interns, then when they have full-time positions open they see more of a chance of that student accepting a job with them,” Sawyer said.

Of the 127 companies on campus for the career fair (down from 144 last year), 21 companies, including Google, were recruiting at Mines for the first time, looking for potential full-time employees along with summer interns and co-op students.

The co-op program is an extended internship which includes not just the summer but also a full semester of time spent with a company.

Sawyer said co-op students will have their degrees delayed by a semester or even a full-year, but can have a leg up when it comes to hiring time, because a company is more familiar with what kind of employee they will be. Co-op students also receive more involved projects to work on during their time away from the classroom.

“It’s a project you can see through to completion, where a summer intern get a less substantive project because they they’re going to be gone in August,” he said.

More and more sophomore-level students are being accepted for internships. Many graduates will have several internships on their resumes by the time they accept a full-time job. Mines touts an overall placement rate of 98 percent for its graduates, with an average starting salary of $63,000.

Sawyer said some freshmen are required to attend the career fair to get used to what can be an overwhelming experience. More than 1,000 students were expected to pack two gymnasiums at the King Center for Tuesday’s career fair.

“The other advantage is the freshmen have done this, they’ve gone up and introduced themselves to companies and talked to them about what they’re interested in. Even if the company does tell them, we only hire sophomore interns, next fall, at the next career fair, it won’t be their first rodeo, so to speak,” Sawyer said.

Following Tuesday’s Career Fair, about half of the employers will be staying on campus to conduct next-day interviews, the university said.

Source: (September 21, 2016) Rapid City Journal

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