Devin Cook quoted on TribStar.com

VEC's own Devin Cook was recently quoted in an article published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star. He recounted his experience attending the Rose-Hulman Career Fair that led to his employment with VEC.

"The familiar adage “Failing to Prepare is Preparing to Fail” could be used to describe Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology students and other college jobseekers preparing to participate in career/job fairs in the home stretch of the recruitment season for full-time, summer internship or co-op work positions.

Devin Cook, a 2007 Rose-Hulman graduate, says that lessons learned before attending his first job fair on campus helped him land his first job at Valdes Engineering near Chicago.

He participated in job fair training workshops offered by Rose-Hulman’s Office of Career Services before attending his first fair.

“They taught us how to sell ourselves, how to write attractive resumes and how to dress,” Cook recently told The Chicago Tribune for a story published in the newspaper’s Jobs Section. Before attending the engineering job fair in 2006 that would lead to his job, the civil engineering alumnus took this one step further. He researched the companies that were going to be at the fair, narrowed his choices and wrote constructive questions to ask recruiters. And, he asked some engineers to critique his resume.

The result: After the fair, Cook secured five interviews, then landed his current job as a structural engineer. Cook was way ahead of the crowd, says Kevin Hewerdine, director of Rose-Hulman’s Office of Career Services and Employer Relations. A veteran in the college career services field, Hewerdine has seen it all — from well-prepared job seekers, like Cook, to those who read from their own resumes during impromptu job fair interviews."

For the full article, click here
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"Valdes Engineering Company (VEC) sets the standard for excellence in engineering serving regional, national and global corporations with on-time, on-budget projects. VEC is a Chicago-based engineering consulting firm, specializing in the petrochemical refining, power, chemical and manufacturing industries."