2009 SAE World Congress

I just spent the last two days visiting the 2009 SAE World Congress at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. Overall it was a very enriching experience for my professional development.

The first day that I attended (4/21) I spent most of the time talking to the recruiters at the career fair. I talked to four local recruiters that were looking for people (aerotek, delta staffing, GTA and superior staffing). I also talked to recruiters from BAE Systems, TATA Motors and Maruti. It was interesting that both TATA and Maruti were looking for automotive professionals to work in Pune and New Delhi in India. SAE had also set aside a small area for people to post their resumes so that recruiters and employers could review them at their leisure.

Separate to the career fair, there are several presentations that were running at the same time on job searching and professional development. I caught two of these presentations. The first was on becoming a consultant by Ralph Wilhelm and provided a lot of detailed information to help people get started. The next presentation was on enhancing your value while you are laid off by Masha Petrova. Masha's presentation provided 10 ways to increase professional value and I intend to follow her advice to beef up my job prospects. Their presentations will be available on SAE's website by the end of next week. One area that I intend to pursue is to become and instructor for SAE and teach development classes. I also intend to volunteer on their committee's to network with other industry professionals.

Today I attended the show again (4/22) and met solely with the companies that had come to exhibit their products. This is an excellent way to keep with the latest developments in my field and meet and talk to other automotive suppliers. I took the opportunity to discuss the state of industry and possible job openings with several suppliers.