The Recent Grad

With a degree in aerospace engineering from one of the best engineering schools in the country, Peter Keding should have felt confident entering the real world after graduation. But like most grads this year, when the economy started a downward spiral, so did Keding’s hopes of landing his dream job. Keding started the hunt early by contacting the company he had interned for. But due to a company-wide hiring freeze, they weren’t able to offer him a position. Campus resources looked slim, as well. “Many companies pulled out of the career fairs due to the downturn in the economy, which lowered my chances,” Keding says. This made it extremely difficult for him to meet and interview with people in person. Keding had always found the campus’s engineering library helpful for school assignments. But after adding job searching tp his lengthy to-do list, Keding quickly made it his second home. The library offered him “free access to many electronic science, math and engineering resources, including many technical journals and reports, such as the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics,” Keding says. “These Web sites were valuable tools to search and educate myself in technical projects that different companies and research groups had conducted or were currently working on.” At the library, Keding researched recent news about prospective employers. “It allowed me to sound prepared during the interview as I could bring up specific news and developments within the company. It also showed them that I was genuinely interested.” This preparedness and persistence led Keding to a job offer that other grads would likely envy. After meeting with Northrop Grumman, a global security company, at a career fair last September, Keding patiently waited two months for an on-site interview. He accepted a position with them three months later and began his career as an engineer last summer in Los Angeles. To his peers still on the hunt, Keding advises: “Persistence pays off. If you are denied the first time, keep pursuing the opportunity if it is really what you have your heart set on.”