The annual Biomedical Engineering Career Fair began a new era in a new location with a new name as a crowd of 563 students, an increase over last year, attended the September 24th event.

“We were building on a great legacy and wanted to keep the momentum going,” said event organizer Brenda Morris, corporate relations manager of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

Morris and her co-director, Ashley James (also a BME corporate relations manager), took on the career fair for the first time and they wanted to make an impact, so they moved the event, which used to be called the Biotechnology Career Fair. After years in the Molecular Science and Engineering (MoSE) Building, they moved it to the Marcus Nanotechnology Building, with its dramatic atrium hall, lined on one side by yellow-tinted clean rooms, which made for an interesting backdrop.

“Recruiters loved the space,” Morris said. “But they loved the quality of our students even more. Several told me that they had some difficult decisions to make, having to choose between so many quality applicants.”

Twenty biotech companies were represented at the fair: Abbott, Avanos/Halyard, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Biosense Webster, Boston Scientific, BW Design Group, Cryolife, Ecolab, Edwards Life Sciences, EPIC, Keck Graduate Institute, Medtronic, Metasystems, Micro C Imaging, Outset Medical, Owens and Minor, Qgenda, Stryker, and Varian.

“Great location this year,” noted Kimberly Cox, a recruiter with BW Design Group. “We enjoyed being on one level with such a neat backdrop, and we met many quality students that we selected to interview on campus the following day.”

A number of recruiters stayed on campus the following days to interview students for open positions.

Sandeep Jangiti of Medtronic added, “I was impressed with the set-up and the way it was organized. I was also impressed with the quality of students and their resumes.”

BME student William Kao said he met with at least six companies, “starting off with some that I thought I wouldn't like, but I found that some of those companies were a lot cooler than I’d expected."

Meanwhile, his BME classmate Sara Keesee noted the relative ease of navigating this year’s fair. “Usually career fairs are overwhelming and exhausting, but this was far from it. With a wide range of companies present, it was easy to get excited about the opportunity to chat with an old Georgia Tech student, a current employee, or even a CEO.”

Most of the students who attended were from the Coulter Department, but Morris noted that mechanical engineering, bioinformatics, biological sciences, and chemical engineering were also well represented. And there was a surprise appearance by Georgia Tech mascot Buzz, which may have delighted the recruiters more than the students.

“Many of the recruiters are Georgia Tech alums,” Morris said. “I think there might have been some nostalgia at play.”