Corporate Connections: TMP students explore job opportunities with local companies

At the sound of the gong, 13 groups of 3-5 students were alerted to move to the next table or they would miss the chance to talk to yet another company for potential job offer.

This was the exciting Fast Pitch Corporate Connections, where more than 50 students from the UC Santa Barbara Technology Management Program (TMP) gathered last month at Corwin Pavilion in a speed-dating, networking event on February 24.

As one of the networking highlights of the year, TMP operates a number of activities to promote professional development and job and career exploration for current students in the program.

At the start, companies took 60 seconds to pitch their company's business and hiring prospects to the crowd. David Telleen-Lawton, Career Development Manager for the Master of Technology Management degree program, served as the host and oversaw each rotation by signaling the gong at the five-minute mark.

The evening was fast-paced over the next two hours with groups of students rotating from one table to another and speaking to thirteen different companies — primarily in the technology sector --  from food sustainability science to relationship business management services.

Within this speed-dating environment, students were given the opportunity to discover companies that otherwise would have been overlooked in a conventional job and career fair format – and get a snapshot of the company's background, culture, job opportunities, and even intriguing work benefits.  Students and recruiters had the chance to deepen their discussions after the final rotation – and in many cases set a meeting for a full-blown interview.

The Fast Pitch Corporate Connections was made possible through support from registered companies for the event: Apeel Sciences; Appfolio; cielo24; Citrix Online; iCracked; InTouch Health; Lesson Planet; LogicMonitor; Procore Technologies, Inc.; ProDIGIQ, Inc.; RightScale; Yardi; and Zuora.

To see pictures from the event, check out our Facebook page.