by Cindy Gierhart
Daily Illini reporter
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| Watha Suteesopon The Daily Illini Matt Wright, junior in engineering, won a brand new BMW convertible at The Clybourne, 708 S. Sixth St., Champaign, during the private party for computer science and computer engineering majors. The event was co-sponsored by CollegeHire.com and Trilogy. |
“I think it’s great. I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” said Trisha O’Neill, senior in computer engineering.
The drawing was open to all computer science and computer engineering majors who took CollegeHire.com’s C++ and Java tests and submitted their resume. The top 50 scores from each test were entered into a single drawing, where the entrant can choose from three prizes: a BMW 323Ci coupe, a Stacked Software Development Environment, or $25,000.
About 170 students sent in their resumes for this event.
“I’ve been here for four years, and this is the best party I’ve been to,” said Luize Majaohaes, graduate student in computer science.
The event was co-sponsored by Trilogy, a company that helps Fortune 500 companies learn to take advantage of the Internet. CollegeHire.com is a spinoff of Trilogy. Four Trilogy and two CollegeHire.com representatives flew from Texas to be at the event. Many of the representatives were pleasantly surprised with the high turnout.
CollegeHire.com, based in Austin, Texas, pairs college students from more than 35 colleges across the nation in technical positions with companies in their field. Someday they hope to expand to place students in non-technical fields as well, said De Hansen, campus consultant for CollegeHire.com.
“They act as an agent for the top candidates they find,” said David King, a Trilogy representative who just graduated from the University and got the job through CollegeHire.com.
CollegeHire.com differs from other job searches because a campus consultant is assigned to each of its colleges and spends more than six months with them each school year.
Hansen, the University’s consultant, said he spends about three days every other week on campus.
“Students are very receptive to that personal interaction,” said Jen Herrick, account developer for CollegeHire.com.
Once a student submits their resume online, the campus consultant reviews the resumes and selects several. Those chosen are then asked to take three tests online and fill out a survey detailing what kind of job they are interested in. Then the campus consultant visits the school and conducts a series of interviews with the applicants. Hansen said he usually interviews about 24 people a visit.
Their profiles are available online to companies connected with CollegeHire.com and both applicant and client can view the process at any time.
Hansen’s personal goal is to place 35 to 40 University students with companies this spring.
Born just more than a year ago, the company is not the only thing that is young. Most of the company was not alive to see the first Woodstock. Hansen said the oldest member of the company is CEO Jeff Daniel, who just turned 30.
