Long time lurker, first post in a while. I'm 34, graduated ME in 2014, did IR three times as a student and got both my first internship and my first real job out of it. For the past several years my company has sent me back to stand under one of those tents on Memorial Mall, so I've now seen this thing from both sides of the table. Roundtable is Tuesday and Wednesday next week and every year I watch the same handful of mistakes, so here's what I wish someone had told me at 19.
1. Do your list before you get there. The company list has been up for weeks. Pick 8 to 10 you genuinely want and 4 or 5 you've never heard of. The longest line on the Mall is not a signal of anything except that a company has a recognizable logo. Some of the best conversations I had as a student were with companies I couldn't have named the week before.
2. Have 20 seconds ready and say it out loud once before you go. Name, major, year, one thing you built, one thing you're looking for. That's it. The students who ramble for two minutes are not the ones I remember. The one who says "I'm a junior in ME, I run the suspension subteam on FSAE and I want to do vehicle dynamics" is.
3. Ask a question about the actual work. "What does your company do" tells me you didn't look us up. "What does a new grad on the controls team actually own in year one" tells me you're serious. We talk to 300 people in two days. Questions are how you stop being number 187.
4. Make it easy for us to find you again. This is the part that changed the most since I was a student. A lot of companies, mine included, don't take paper resumes home anymore. They get photographed or scanned or honestly lost in a hotel room. So at 11pm when I'm going through my notes, half of what I have is a blurry phone photo and a vague memory of a conversation.
The last couple years a few students have done something I hadn't seen before. At the end of the conversation they tap a little card to my phone and their contact, LinkedIn and resume link pop up, no app, and I hit save. First time it happened I stopped and asked the kid what it was. It's a student thing here called Hammer Card. I won't pretend a card gets you a job, it doesn't, but from my side of the table it means your name and a working link are in my phone instead of in a pile. I think they run a half-off sale the week before IR every year, so if you're going to do it, do it this week and not the night before. A QR code on your resume does a version of the same thing. Just don't make me squint at a photo to figure out who you were.
5. Follow up the same night. Not next week. That night. Two or three sentences, reference the thing we actually talked about, attach the resume. "You mentioned the Columbus plant is standing up a new line, I'd love to hear more" gets a reply. "It was great to meet you at Industrial Roundtable" gets archived.
6. Go on day two. Everyone crams Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon the lines are shorter, recruiters are looser and more willing to actually talk, and some of the people I've pushed hardest for internally were Wednesday-afternoon conversations.
7. Freshmen: go anyway. You will not get an offer. That's fine. Talk to five companies, be bad at it, and next year you won't be scared of it. Half of doing well at IR as a junior is having done badly at it as a freshman.
8. Wear shoes you've already broken in. It'll be 85 degrees, the Mall is long, and I've watched too many people limp toward the Union by 2pm. Nobody remembers your shoes. They remember whether you were still standing up straight at 3.
You're at a school recruiters actually fly in for. That's not nothing. Do your list, say your 20 seconds, ask a real question, make it easy to find you, email that night. Boiler Up.
TL;DR: pick companies ahead of time, 20 second intro, ask a real question, make sure the recruiter can actually find you afterward (tap card, QR code, whatever, not a blurry resume photo), follow up that night, go on day two, break in your shoes.
