On Thursday January 14th, the engineers once again invaded Bomber for another Sandvine recruiting event. Many of us upper years definitely know of Sandvine, especially if you have been to one of their previous recruiting events at Bomber. For those of you who are in first year, or are new to the University, I’ll describe a little more about the company and their event.
Sandvine, headquartered here in Waterloo, is a company that develops network solutions for internet service providers. In addition to an office in Waterloo, the company has many more worldwide in such places as New York and Jerusalem. Every term, the company, like many other companies, hires co-op students from Waterloo. Although most of these companies hire out of Jobmine, Sandvine does things a little different – they host a massive recruiting event at Bomber.
It all begins with getting a hold of a ticket for the event. If you’re in upper year electrical, computer, software or system design engineering, a class rep will generally have access to tickets to give out. For those who are interested in the company but don’t get tickets through this method, another way to get a hold of tickets is to reply to a friend’s “I’ve got X tickets to Sandvine!!” status on Facebook. I was luckily on the guest list, so I had no trouble getting access, but it can be difficult!
On the night of the actual event, one must bring their resume to gain entry – this is a recruiting event nonetheless! Upon entering Bomber, your IDs are checked and you are handed tickets with the lovely word “Beer” written on the front. That’s right – free beer! In the past, these events have typically been open bar, but gone are those days! Regardless, I am not complaining. In addition to drinks, appetizer platters made their way around Bomber in waves as the night progressed, offering snacks to many hungry students.
Current full-time employees and Sandvine co-op students – past and present are available to talk about the working experience at Sandvine. I had the opportunity to speak with Co-Founder and current President/CEO of Sandvine, Dave Caputo and he had the following to say about the event, “Many of the people here are co-workers and friends, so it’s a great night out with good drinks, good food and good music. When you work with your friends , it hardly seems like work at all.”
By the end of night over 300 people made their way through the event, and some of those will eventually become future employees of Sandvine, who Caputo says are “an integral part of Sandvine.” Caputo mentioned the Waterloo co-op students bring valuable experience to the company, and eventually graduate as real engineers with great work experience.
I personally enjoyed my time spent at the recruiting event, and believe Sandvine is doing a perfect job getting their name out to students. I feel its very important to know about the company behind job opportunities and what better way than to mingle with their current employees.
One note for the future: Sit at the large tables if you want to get food. I found the Bomber staff did a terrible job of fairly distributing the appetizer platters. I observed smaller tables received no food at all, but larger tables receiving platters all throughout the night. I guess it also helps to personally know the one or two waiters/waitresses that were actually dealing the food out to the tables.
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