By Olivia Chhlang | Reporter
The engineering and computer science department’s cybersecurity club hosted a career prep day in Cashion on Thursday for students in the department to freshen up their resume and get an insight into what recruiters look for.
Entering Baylor’s career fair may look different this year for engineering and computer science as the recruiters look for criteria specific to the ECS department.
Dumas senior Aaron Sierra, treasurer of Cyber at Baylor, said that he thinks Baylor’s career fair has not differed in the past from other majors.
“I can definitely see how it can be more competitive now,” Sierra said. “There is growing popularity, and Baylor has put a lot of resources into developing the department.”
Reina Wiseman, assistant director for Baylor’s Career Center, explained what a good resume looks like and how to utilize it to its best potential. She said on average, a recruiter looks at a resume for 15 seconds — maximum.
For engineering and computer science students, technology is used in the classroom frequently. This also applies to curating a resume, and Wisemen encouraged students to use artificial intelligence as a tool to help check a resume.
“Use it to help you and not hurt you,” Wiseman said.
Engineering and computer science students should split their resume into two parts: hard skills and soft skills.
Hard skills can be classes a student has taken as well as technical and program capabilities. Because engineering and computer science students can have very similar hard skills, the soft skills are what set students apart from one another.
“I need to find everything that I need from your [resume] — software capabilities, program capabilities, what you’ve been involved in and how you’ve been involved in them,” Wiseman said.
Wiseman said that when conducting interviews, recruiters will focus more on getting to know a student personally and learn more about how they can make a good fit into their company. Then, later rounds of interviews are used to discuss work ethic.
Hard and soft skills along with transferable skills, which are things learned in one job that can transfer to the next, should stand out in a resume.
“I don’t want you to tell me what your job was,” Wiseman said. “I want you to show me what you learned and the experience that you gained.”
Wiseman explained a method for students to do this by writing “what” a student did, “how” they did it and “why” a student chose to be involved in a specific job.
At the end of the event, Wiseman looked at the students’ resumes to make any final adjustments before the upcoming Career Day on Oct. 2nd at the Mark and Paula Hurd Center from 12 to 5 p.m.
