Seeing the NC State Engineering Career Fair in action last fall was a full-circle moment for Will Mullen ‘13, now an engineering manager at Nation Ford Chemical and former student career fair volunteer.

“I just happened to be on campus [to give a talk] at the same time as the career fair, so I got to see everything,” said Mullen, who found his first job as a plant engineer at Praxair, Inc. through the career fair while a chemical engineering student at NC State University.

“The student management structure was very different,” he continued. “They made it their own and improved on issues we didn’t even see. Everybody had their job to do, and it was neat seeing it run like clockwork, coming in as somebody who helped set up that clockwork.”

The Engineering Career Fair debuted in the spring of 1998 as a student-run endeavor. In 2001, the Office of Academic Affairs took over to put on a two-day event each fall and a one-day event each spring. While faculty and staff help, it’s the students who run what is now one of the largest student-run engineering career fairs in the United States.

Kaitlyn Gainey, a senior majoring in construction engineering, has worked for the career fair since her first year at NC State. She made connections that led to her internship with DPR Construction this summer.

“Having a relationship with these recruiters has been really beneficial for me, networking-wise,” she said. “A lot of my friends got their internships from the career fair.”

Since the Office of Academic Affairs got involved, the Engineering Career Fair has more than quadrupled in size. The 1998 career fair hosted 58 companies and 1,500 students. The fall 2024 event showcased 292 companies and over 6,000 attendees.

“A big decision early on was the audience,” said Jerome Lavelle, the college’s associate dean of academic affairs. “If we’re going to really make this a signature event and create value for our companies, we better make sure we’re putting a lot of students in front of them.”

This influenced the decision to open the career fair to the public in 2012. Today, students from all over the country join NC State students in attending the career fair.

“It’s a phenomenal opportunity for our Wolfpack family as well as other students from other universities,” said Brian Koehler, director of high-impact educational experiences. “We have the very best companies in the whole world here because they know that our students are the type who roll up their sleeves and get the job done.”