2020-12-10: INCOSE CC and Local Job Fair
by Dave Alldredge, ESEP
On 10 December, 2020, the Chesapeake Chapter (CC) of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) hosted a booth at the reStart Virtual Job Fair. The fair ran continuously from 2PM to 5PM for a total of 3 hours using the Brazen web-based software platform. The booth was manned by two representatives from the INCOSE CC, George Anderson and Dave Alldredge who took turns chatting with visitors. Both serve as Ambassadors on the INCOSE CC Board of Directors and both are INCOSE Certified Systems Engineering Professionals (ESEPs). During the fair, a total of 33 people visited the booth. An average of 4 minutes was spent chatting with each of the visitors. That works out to be a total of 2.2 hours spent in chats for a 3-hour meeting. This means there was very little downtime between discussions. Early in the fair, George Anderson scanned the attendee list and invited a few people filtering on “Maryland” for location and “Systems Engineering” in their title to come to our booth. The other visitors came to our booth without invitation. People with varied titles visited including IT Support, Administrator, System Administrator, Cyber Security Analyst, to name a few. Each attendee was asked to sign up for the INCOSE CC monthly email newsletter. Approximately 25 (75%) of the visitors agreed to sign up for the newsletter.
The visitors were initially advised that INCOSE CC did not offer employment opportunities but were a local chapter of a professional society for Systems Engineers. It was emphasized that being a Systems Engineer was not a requirement for joining or participating. The major benefit to job seekers is the ability to network on a regular basis with others in the area in the engineering field. The INCOSE CC meets monthly for a dinner and lecture on various topics of engineering interest. Normally, the meetings are at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Applied Physics Lab (APL) in Laurel, MD on the third Wednesday of the month. After COVID19 started, INCOSE CC now meets virtually via Zoom. Other aspects of INCOSE CC’s activities such as tutorials and training options were mentioned. Links were provided to the chapter’s web site (INCOSE-CC.org). The INCOSE Certification Program for Systems Engineers and INCOSE’s Working Groups were also described to those who were interested.
Just before 5PM, the fair closing time was extended to 6PM, but due to previous commitments by both representatives, the INCOSE CC booth was closed at 5:05PM.
In conclusion, the fair from the INCOSE CC point of view was a great success. About 25 people were added to our email list to maintain contact in the future. The only real problem encountered was a lack of a communication path between the two INCOSE CC representatives during the fair. It was solved by maintaining a separate cell phone connection between the two representatives throughout the duration of the fair. In the future it would be beneficial for the Brazen software to provide a private communications path between booth representatives.
